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Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
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1:09 pm - Fake Monday is fake
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That was a good weekend, though I feel like I could use one more day off. I had a day of sloth and gentle errand-running, then a productive day of troupe practice and dinner-party-hosting, then another day of sloth + gardening and troupe practice. At least this will be a short work week. And payday, which will be welcomed with great cries and exaltations.
Sunday night I had a dream about the zombie apocalypse, from which I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep for a while. And then I got up Monday morning and heard about the naked cannibal zombie guy in Florida, and thought "It has begun." Following this, I thought "Tonight, I would like to dream of winning a large sum of money." As far as I know, that didn't happen.
I have berries growing on my strawberry plants. And the beginnings of little broccoli florets. And tons of tender yummy lettuce. And my potatoes are going crazy. More gardening needs to happen this weekend.
current mood:  hungry
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| Tuesday, May 15th, 2012
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3:46 pm - Commence panic in 3...2...1...
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So, I'm the featured soloist in the MEDGE show on Friday. (You should come!) As is typical, I am feeling under-rehearsed, sleep-deprived, am wavering between thinking everything I do is too boring and fearing that everything I'm attempting is too ambitious, am frantically sewing a new costume that may or may not turn out, and I'm about to start my period. Yep, it's a performance week. Yay.
current mood:  stressed
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| Friday, May 11th, 2012
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10:45 am - Tribalation at Breitenbush
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I had meant to post this sooner, but evidently forgot. At any rate, here's the video of my performance with Tribalation at Breitenbush a couple of weeks ago, doing our a capella version of John Compton's Cymbal Dance, with a bit of ITS at the end. This was at an informal salon for the other retreat-goers, hence the simpler costumes/hair, lack of stage makeup, and low lighting.
It still kind of weirds me out to see photos/videos of myself dancing in a troupe where we're all roughly the same height, after so many years of always being the tallest member of any troupe by a significant margin. It's actually kind of... nice?... to look average.
[Oh, and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) innostrantsa, the dancer in the front in the green pantaloons is K, who will be moving your way in August.]
current mood:  calm
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| Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
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6:23 pm - Some days I want to marry Jon Stewart
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| Thursday, March 15th, 2012
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3:05 pm - Ohmigod you guys
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I... don't have anything scheduled tonight.
*blink*
No, really.
I might go to a pilates class at 7. Or, more likely, I might order Thai food and sit on the couch knitting and watching tv.
Maybe I'll do both.
current mood:  tired
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| Thursday, March 1st, 2012
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11:07 am - Tune-up
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I drove up to Portland last night to take a class with Rachel Brice. Every now and then, when she has a month where she's not traveling too much, she'll teach a short class series at Datura. This was a 4-week series of technique drills, and last night was the final class. (It was also the only class I could make it to, so I was glad she allowed people to register for single class sessions as well as the whole series.) I made it up to Portland in good time and arrived about half an hour before class started, which was enough time for me to get changed and hang out and relax and drink some tea, without feeling rushed or having too much extra time.
It was my first time back at Datura since 8 Elements, and I was surprised at how much it felt like home... even though I felt like the new kid in class, since those who had been there the three previous weeks had the class-bond going. There was one other woman I know from 8 Elements in the class, so it was nice to see her. Both Sol and Rachel recognized me and gave me big hugs when they saw me, so that made me happy.
The class was 2 hours long and open to mixed levels, and it kicked my ass. (Though, given that I was still kind of achey from Tuesday, I wasn't sure how I'd do with dancing, but it made me feel much better in that regard.) It made me realize how much I've been inhabiting ATS/ITS land and not tribal fusion land lately, not to mention not drilling on my own. I've been hearing via the 8 Elements grapevine that Rachel's new favorite thing to do in warmups is to have us do bottom-to-top belly rolls while in plank, and yep, those came out to play. (I was terrible at them, of course; but it's incentive to play with them more and see what I might be able to do to build that muscle control.) She had us doing these circular movements with our shoulder blades that were cool, but intensive, and my arms felt really weird and formless. We also did a shimmy drill that lasted a good 30 minutes, which reminded me how blah my shimmies are. Then she taught us a cute little combo that we drilled and drilled and drilled. Then we did some closing yoga and chanting, and that was that. Afterwards, people kind of hung around for a while as they got changed; there was a Japanese girl who was visiting Portland and who asked me to take several pictures of her with Rachel and Sol. I looked at some jewelry that I couldn't afford, then bought a t-shirt and caught up with Sol and Rachel for a while before finally heading out around 9:30.
Realized in the car just as I was back on the interstate that I'd left my zills at Datura. 'Doh! I emailed Sol and he's going to send them to me.
The drive home was fairly hairy. There wasn't any weather happening in Portland, but as I got further south, it started to mist, then drizzle, then rain, then the rain started turning into snow (even though it was well above freezing outside.) By the time I was passing Salem, it was all snow, coming down in big, heavy, wet clumps of flakes. From Salem to Albany is a 30ish-mile empty stretch of interstate, with only a few exits that lead to little country roads, no lights, and the most hilly & twisty part of the drive. That was, of course, the stretch where I suddenly found myself in whiteout conditions, driving down I-5 at 20 mph. I wasn't so much worried about the road being slippery (my Forester and its all-wheel drive did great! Not a single slip of traction), but the snow was sticking to the road surface, so I couldn't see the lines anymore, and with my headlights mostly illuminating the snow that was blowing towards me and having no other ambient light, I couldn't see far enough ahead of me to see the edges or curves of the road. For a while I stayed behind somebody else who was also going slow, just so that I'd have some wheel tracks to follow, but then they pulled over and I had to forge ahead on my own. I finally saw a sign for a rest stop, so I got off there and took a break. I was seriously considering spending the night at the rest stop if I had to, but after about 20 or 30 minutes, the snowfall lightened up a bit, and I decided to get back on the road. It was a lot easier to see, and within about 5-10 miles the snow turned into rain, then drizzle, then mist. The rest of the drive home was fine, with the rain coming and going and occasionally mixing with snow, but nothing like that stretch between Salem and the rest stop. By the time I got to Eugene, I didn't even need to use my wipers. Got home a little after midnight and fell asleep pretty fast.
current mood: tired
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| Friday, January 20th, 2012
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4:09 pm - Gathering two of every animal and building a bigger boat
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It's raining. It's been raining for days. The weather forecast shows nothing but rain and 47-degree highs for the foreseeable future.
"But Ann," I hear you saying. "You live in Oregon! To say that it's raining is as self-evident a statement as to say that grass is green or that tigers have stripes. Why, therefore, are you commenting?"
Because, my friends. It is raining a lot. Most of my experience of Pacific Northwest raininess thus far has been more of a generalized misty drizzle that is gradually saturating and omnipresent, but for which one does not generally need an umbrella or hood. Some of you have heard me bemoan our lack of thunderstorms or midwestern-style torrential downpours. And while we haven't had either, it has, in fact, been just pissing rain fairly nonstop. The rivers have been flooding in many areas. I, personally, am hoping to avoid a repeat of the backed-up sewage event that apparently occurred in my bathroom while I was traveling.*
In the meantime, I gave in and ordered some rain boots for the first time in my life. (But they are Earth rain boots, and were massively on sale! Yay to both these things! I am slightly concerned about whether they will actually fit my calves, but we'll see when they get here. I also picked up some brown leather riding-style Earth boots that were also massively on sale. Again with the calf concern, but we shall see.)
In other non-news, I am wearing BPAL's Captain Cully scent today for the first time. I'd held off a bit on this one because in the bottle it smelled like a classic men's cologne, and those types of blends tend to be a bit acrid on me. But no! On my skin, there's a light whiff of musk in the background and the most delicious light leather scent in the forefront. Not as heavily leathery and smokey as De Sade; this makes me think of buttery soft, caramel-colored leather. I kind of want to roll in this perfume.
Also, I finally bought my ass a rec center punch card and took aforementioned ass to lunchtime yoga with The Fabulous Chantelle. And oh, it was lovely to be back. And this term, I can go to yoga during lunch three times a week, which is delightful.
Oh, and finally, I have to share with you a discovery I made yesterday while answering a reference question sent in by one of our faculty members. I did not find the answer to his question, but I did discover what is certainly the grossest music dissertation ever written: "A study of the bacterial flora in selected student brass musical instruments" by one Cynthia Bridges, written to complete her PhD in Music Education at University of Hawaii in 2005. Ew! I mean, we all know that shared wind instruments among students are cesspools of filth, but why, why did she have to go there? Ew. Ew ew ew.
___
* - My catsitters/neighbors thankfully contacted our landlords right away, who, to their credit, took care of everything, so there wasn't any sort of mess for me to come home to, other than a suspicious-smelling patch of carpet outside the bathroom. I still need to rent a steam cleaner from the grocery store and tackle that patch, but I also need to just generally clean and vacuum the whole carpet first.
current mood: mellow
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| Friday, January 13th, 2012
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12:28 pm
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BPAL's current lunacy scent is Black Bear Moon. How did I not notice this until now? Budget's tight in the post-Xmas month, but I ordered it anyway, because it goes away in 3 days. I'm on a bit of a BPAL kick again because gaius_de_mare got me one of the sampler packs of their Last Unicorn series (the pack that has Schmendrick in it, of course), and they tossed in a bunch of frimps with it. I haven't even gotten to any of the frimps, because I've just been wearing the Unicorn's Horn scents. Also, only two of the frimps are scents that I already had, and amazingly, no Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo this time! I swear they always throw that one in and I hate it. I do NOT want to smell like bubblegum.
Tonight, I am going to a Russian New Year celebration at a coworker's house-- she's our Russian/Slavic/Armenian/All Things Eastern European/Arabic/Hebrew cataloger. (She herself is Armenian, grew up in Soviet Russia, and is an absolute treasure.) Anyway, apparently it's going to be me, another library coworker, and a bunch of Russian students. We've been instructed to bring 2 bottles of vodka. I do not see this going well for my liver.
current mood:  busy
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| Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
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9:54 am - A few dancing thoughts...
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So the MEDGE show went well: I did both sets and managed not to fuck things up and mix up the two vocabularies. One of my troupemates from Azhaar was sick and had to cancel, and since we'd planned our set as a quartet with two duets in the middle, we managed to talk Kathryn (one of the dancers in Tribalation) to stand in for our sick troupemate. This meant that she was my duet partner, and while we haven't danced together all that much, Kathryn has a background in ATS (she's done the GS, we've had conversations about the stuff from the FCBD format that we like that Tribalation doesn't do). So during our duet, she got this wicked gleam in her eye, and busted out some FCBD moves that Tribalation doesn't do, like the Egyptian spins, and that was fun.
I managed not to do anything dumb during Kindred's set either, though I got really tired-- it was a longer set (3 songs, about 12 minutes), and that first song was so fast. That's one thing I've gotten un-used to, because Sabine mostly uses medium-tempo fast music, and I've gotten out of the habit of dancing to really fast fast music. Still, it went pretty well, but I definitely felt like I was sloppier in the final song because I was so tired and my right shoulder was trying to lock up.
Also, there was indeed a significant contingent of library folk there cheering me on, which was both awesome and kind of weird. And one of my other Azhaar troupemates (who's been on hiatus due to a foot injury) came up to me afterwards and asked if there was any part of the local dance scene I didn't have my hands in. I laughed and said, "well, I'm not doing cabaret... yet."
Saturday morning at 9 am, I had my first troupe rehearsal with Tribalation. They're doing a gig in early January with Brothers of the Baladi, so this was sort of a rehearsal for that. I'm not doing the gig with them, so I thought this would just be me shadowing them while they worked on whatever they're doing for it, but it was looser than that, more of a chance for us to get used to dancing together. I also got my first taste of group improv with sword, and learned a few new sword techniques that were cool and which I really need to practice because I kind of sucked at them.
I was supposed to have a training session with Sabine and Kathryn last night, but I canceled because I was home with a stomach bug and a fever, so dancing was definitely out of the question. I was sorry to miss it, though. Oh well, we'll reschedule after the holidays.
current mood: busy
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| Friday, December 16th, 2011
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11:49 am - A night of firsts
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Tonight is the monthly MEDGE show at Cozmic Pizza. I'm dancing in it, which is not a first, but what and how are: for the first time, I won't be performing as a soloist. More than that, I really get to test the limits of my capacity for compartmentalization, because I'm performing with two different troupes, Azhaar (Sabine/Tribalation's student troupe) and Kindred (Lindsey's ATS troupe). So I get to not only do Tribalation-style ITS and FCBD-style ATS, I get to do them in the same show. And not fuck things up.
Surprisingly, once I started rehearsing regularly with Jenny and Lindsey, the ATS started flowing again easily (though my first rehearsal with Lindsey was a little rocky, and I still keep mixing up Tribalation's Sternum Pull Turn with FCBD's Wraparound Turn, because they're kind of the same except being totally different), and I'm actually finding that keeping the two styles separate isn't proving as challenging as I expected. I think it has a lot to do with compartmentalization of people and space: there's no personnel crossover between the two groups (other than me), and we practice in really different ways in totally different spaces. Something about that makes it a lot easier now for me to "speak Tribalation" with Azhaar and to "speak ATS" with Kindred. But I haven't ever had to do both in the same night, let alone in the same show, so that will be interesting.
Also, there may be a significant contingent of my coworkers there. Granted, there have been coworkers of mine at these shows before, particularly the maps librarian, Kathy, who is a secret bellydancer and whom I enticed to start taking classes from Sabine. And sometimes the presence of coworkers at these shows has been expected, sometimes not. But at any rate, there's a group of us who have a standing Friday night post-work beer-imbibing thing, which is generally spearheaded by my turkey-murdering accomplice John; he sent out today's Friday beer roll call, and designated Cozmic as this week's location, as well as specifying in the email that I would be performing. So, um. Eep? Not like I haven't already bellydanced in front of the whole damn library at the Gonzo revue last September, but still.
Still, looking forward to getting my dance on! :D Tomorrow morning at 9 am, I have a "rehearsal" with Tribalation-- which is to say, they're rehearsing for a show in early January, and as part of my training/apprenticeship with them, I'll be there shadowing them. I was told to bring my sword. Sweet!
current mood: good
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| Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
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11:56 am - Because this poem has been in my head
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Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
current mood: tired
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| Monday, December 5th, 2011
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10:22 am
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So the house I'm renting uses heating oil. I've never lived anywhere that heated from oil before, and it's still a total mystery to me. The house does also have a small electric space heater built into the living room wall, and an electric baseboard in the upstairs room, but the oil-burning furnace is the most effective way to heat the house.
Friday morning I finally called and ordered more heating oil for my house. (It had run out in October, and I'd been heating from the little space heater thing in the living room, which caused my most recent electric bill to double, so no more of that.) I ordered 50 gallons of oil, which is the minimum order the company will do, and which they've estimated is about half of what my tank will hold.
I admit, it's been nice to have effective, frequent heat this past weekend. It's gotten cold here ("cold" for Eugene being just below freezing at night and in the upper 30s/low 40s during the day-- midwestern and New England friends, you may certainly laugh all you wish.) I don't keep my house all that warm, usually the heat was set to about 65, never more than 68, but this house has completely shitty insulation, so the heat was kicking on a lot. Also, it was a pretty mellow weekend and I was home for most of it, so I kept things warmer than I would during the week when I'm gone all day. I've been fretting a bit about use, though, because I need those 50 gallons to last till early January, and to keep the cats relatively warm while I'm away for 2 weeks. The budget is tight this month, what with Xmas and travel, so I really can't afford to buy more oil until after next payday.
Cue this morning. I get up, notice the house feels cold. Check the thermostat: heat is set to 65, but the actual temp in the house is 61. The furnace is not blowing. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Commence freaking out. Checked the breakers for the furnace, which were not tripped, but reset them anyway just in case. Still nothing. Did I somehow burn through 50 gallons of oil in a weekend by maintaining my house at an extravagant upper-mid-60s climate? Or is the furnace dying? Either way, I'm not thrilled. I called the oil company and asked if they had any sort of estimate of how long it would take to use up that 50 gallons. They said there are a lot of variables, etc., but the usual rate is between 2 and 5 gallons a day, closer to 5 when it's cold like it has been. So no, I couldn't have burned up 50 gallons in 3 days, not even if I was setting the temperature to 90.
So now to call my landlady, and see how good she is when stuff needs fixing. I'm slightly dreading this. I really wish the damn fireplace was usable, but when I inquired about that last week, she told me that it absolutely was not (some sort of massive problem with the chimney.)
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| Monday, November 21st, 2011
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12:49 pm - Adventures in turkey murder
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So back in October, I decided to order a Thanksgiving turkey from one of the farmers at the little farmers market near my house. There's one vendor, Valerie, whose produce I buy frequently, and who is always really nice and remembers my name and what I do for a living, and always has a few minutes to chat. She just sells produce at the market, but she has a CSA and does raise poultry for that and Thanksgiving. I ordered a bird from her, along with a CSA box of winter veggies, and when we discussed the timeframe for delivery of the turkey, she said that they'd be doing the turkey harvest the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and that I was welcome to come out and help with that or just observe. "Lots of people like to come out and help with the harvest," she said. "Only in fucking Oregon," I thought.
After much thought, I decided to take her up on her invitation. I was, frankly, unsure as to how much involvement I'd be able to handle; I wasn't certain going in to it whether I'd have the option to kill my own bird, and if so, if I would be able to go through with that. (Mostly I was concerned about messing it up and causing a significant additional amount of suffering and trauma for the bird.) But I decided that if I had a opportunity to look a creature that I'm choosing to eat in the face and come to terms with the fact of its death for my benefit, I couldn't pass that up-- I try to opt for locally-raised, ethically-sourced meat as often as I can afford it, but actually being part of that process was a whole other level of commitment.
It's too bad that innostrantsa is still on the road en route to visit me for Thanksgiving, because we chatted about it a lot and she was quite curious about the experience as well (since she'll be eating this turkey too.) However, I'd also invited my friend John from work for Thanksgiving dinner, so I asked him if he'd want to come with me to the turkey harvest, and he was game for the adventure. (He even compiled a playlist for the car ride based off of a running joke we've had going about poultry-based metal subgenres; we determined that the appropriate one for this occasion was lo-fi noise-ambient black pheasantcore, so that's what he themed the playlist around.)
( A bit more description of the process, and some photos. Probably better not to click if you don't eat meat or are squeamish about examining where it comes from. )
It was a really interesting experience. While I'm not sure I could raise poultry for meat and do this often, I'm glad I went... it was a surprisingly good time, and John and the others were great company. I think I'd be willing to go back in the summer and learn more. At the least, I can say that I really know where my food comes from (this particular food, anyway), and it makes me feel slightly more competent at basic life skills for when the zombie apocalypse comes.
current mood: accomplished
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| Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
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8:43 pm
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AAAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHHHH NOT ONLY ARE THE FUCKING MICE BACK, THEY GOT INTO MY FUCKING TEA STASH.
3 honey sticks eaten. 2 bags of loose tea torn open and strewn all over. Mouse shit all over everything.
AUUUUUGHHHH.
Perhaps it's time to stop feeding the cats for a while...
current mood:  pissed off
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| Friday, October 21st, 2011
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10:56 am - New phone, raffle stuff
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I now have an iPhone. The new one, with the tiny helpful woman living inside it, and 64 GB of space. 64GB?! That's 8 times the space on my iPod. And my old Android phone only had something like 250 MB of space on the phone, plus a 2 GB SD card-- and it has slowed down horrifically in the last few months due to increasing memory problems.
I'm still learning how to use this thing, so a lot of things are still weird about it. Overall, as a piece of technology, it is vastly superior to my last phone-- fast, slick, flexible. It will be nice to have a phone that will communicate with my laptop. I've already discovered the iTunes cloud feature, which let me download to my phone everything that I've ever purchased through iTunes, without having to sync the phone to my computer... awesome! The screen is lovely. I was trepidatious about having only a touchscreen and no slide-out keyboard, because typing on the touchscreen on my old phone was clunky and inaccurate, but this one is much more responsive and usable. The phone itself is much smaller and more streamlined, though it feels heavier because it's denser for the size and there's no plastic casing, just glass and metal; I'm also paranoid about breaking it, so I do want to get a shell of some sort for the back and sides, and a Zagg shield for the screen. I looked to see what they had at the Sprint store last night, but they were pretty much cleaned out of all iPhone accessories. (Ironically, I had just ordered a replacement Zagg shield for my old phone right before Sprint became an iPhone carrier and my dad offered to upgrade my phone, so I guess I'll send it back and exchange it for the one for my current phone.)
I do miss the Android OS's ease at syncing all of my Google stuff. I use my Gmail account for everything except work emails, I use Gtalk a lot for chatting with gaius_de_mare throughout the day, I use Google calendar for work and personal stuff, I stash a lot of things in Google docs, I'm {sort of} on Google+. So far I had a bunch of trouble getting the Apple mail to connect to my Gmail account, though it finally did, and I'm not in love with the interface. (I can't figure out how to delete messages! It only gives me the option to archive them, which is not what I want. Suggestions?) I downloaded a couple of chat/messaging clients to try, and so far I can't get them to connect to Gmail either. So still working on that.
Got the new phone activated last night, though this morning I was trying to set up my voicemail, and kept getting an automated message saying there was no voicemail account associated with this number. Spent an hour on the phone with three different customer service people, all of whom were baffled, and then suddenly, finally, it worked right and gave me the voicemail setup screen. So now I have voicemail again. In the meantime, somebody with a Salem, OR, cell number called me at 7:30 this morning, and I have no idea who it was or what they wanted, as I missed the call and there was no voicemail for them to leave a message with yet. I'm wondering if it might be something related to the MEDGE raffle, in which case I should probably call back and find out.
Speaking of the MEDGE raffle, tonight is basically going to be spent putting things in baskets and making inventories and getting all of that ready to go. I'll go stop by the party goods store after I get home to get tissue and basket stuffing and whatnot to fluff things out. I think I didn't do too badly all in all, even if I didn't quite get on top of soliciting new local donors as actively as I would have liked. But I have an awful lot of donated dance stuff to divy out, as well as various gift certificates and whatnot. I think it'll be fine
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| Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
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10:33 am - Linky roundup, other stuff
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First, links what I have enjoyed this week:
GOP Presidential Hopeful Reaches Out to Pagans
Yep, you read that right. Found this through fellow Eugenian Jason Pizl-Waters of The Wild Hunt blog. Gary Johnson sounds like the kind of Republican I would like to see more of in politics and popular media, which means he'll probably never get even a remote shot at candidacy. Still, it's important that someone like him keeps working and keeps speaking out.
Exit, Pursued By A Bear
From my knitting buddy Kalpana-- A Canadian artist's series of paintings wherein Shakespeare's most famous stage direction meets the most famous names in 20th-century literary/critical theory. I can't stop giggling at this, both at the paintings and the artist's bio/statement.
JSTOR Access for Smith Alumnae
Heard about this from littleowl. JSTOR access is not really an issue for me, considering where I work, but I think it's fantastic that Smith (and several other universities and colleges) has partnered with JSTOR to provide access for alumnae. Now if only they could manage permanent alumnae email accounts (not just forwarding addresses)...
Twisted Sister Arts
namaah_darling posted about this Etsy shop, which specializes in hand-painted, wire-wrapped evil eye pendants. These look nothing like the traditional Turkish evil eyes, they're more along a fantasy/dragon/steampunk aesthetic, which usually doesn't do it for me. But wow! The detail, the shaping, the framing, the colors, are just amazing. So if anyone feels like buying me things, feel free to shop here! Just kidding. Mostly.
In other news, after far too many stressed-out busy work weeks with very little exercise, I've finally started doing yoga again, which is helping my tense muscles. Also, I had waxed rhapsodic to one of my coworkers about Viniyoga a few weeks ago, and today she came to me to say that she'd gotten Gary Kraftsow's upper back/neck/shoulders dvd through ILL, as well as checked out Yoga for Wellness from the public library, and that it's already making a huge difference for some neck and shoulder issues she'd been having. Yay! Which reminds me, I should start doing some regular viniyoga sequences again, because, you know, mobility and alignment are good things.
I also restarted Couch to 5K training, in an effort to get moving more and to cross-train with non-dance movements. There's a 5K walk/jog/run on campus in early November; registration was free, and they're offering free group training sessions to faculty/staff/students. I registered as a walker, but my actual goal is to do a combo of walking and jogging (or wogging, as I've been saying on Facebook.) So I'm going to the group walk training sessions, basically just to get up and moving and away from my desk during my lunch break three times a week, and doing C25K on my own. The very first C25K session felt harder than I remembered, my body felt really creaky and balky, and I was more sore than I expected afterwards. But I did the second session yesterday, and even though I was sore going into it, the running parts felt easier, and I feel a lot less sore today. So maybe I'll make it through this time... I seem to remember around Week 4 there's a big jump in running duration, which is where I stopped last time, but hopefully I can keep it up. It's also motivation to get into, and out of, work fairly early on C25K days, because I don't really want to run outside after dark. I am appreciative of how much of a runner's town this is, though, and of the fact that I have two fairly lengthy soft-surface running trails within a 5-minute warmup walk of my house, so I can go a little easier on my joints and stay out of traffic.
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| Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
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2:42 pm - You're welcome
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| Thursday, October 6th, 2011
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11:40 pm - Facebook as virtual wake/reunion
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My grandmother's cousin Pat (who is closer in age to my dad than to his mother) lives near where my grandparents lived in Florida, and saw both of them more regularly in their last years than any of the rest of us. She'd set up a Facebook profile for my grandfather last summer, so that she could update us about how he was and what they did when she'd go to see him, and so that we could write on his wall and send messages that she would show him during her visits.
Today she posted a status update through his profile about his death. And then I posted a few links on his wall of some stuff I found online related to his career-- a photo of Grandpa (back row, second from the left) and his fellow founders of the Society of Toxicology, as well as an article detailing the founding and early history of the SoT that mentions both my grandfather (who was a founding member of the Society as well as its second president) and my grandmother (who apparently designed the Society's seal.)
And then some distant cousin of mine (I think Pat's nephew, maybe?) posted a link on Grandpa's wall to a FB album he's put up of lots of old family photos he's scanned dating from the late 19th century through the 1960s. Most of them are of his more immediate family, who are extended members of my family that I've never met, but there was this one picture of my grandparents that just completely made my day:
The adults are my paternal grandparents, Louise and Boyd; the kids are cousin Pat and her little brother Tom; the cow is unknown.
There seems like such a story here in this picture that I would love to know more about. My grandfather looks, as usual, a bit dorky-- somehow I don't think my grandmother was into him for his looks. My grandmother, on the other hand, is simply gorgeous. I've seen a few pics of her as a young woman to know that she was a beauty, but I haven't seen many, and I'd never seen this one before. She's so glamorous! The cousin who posted this didn't give a date (if he even had one), but I'd guess maybe around 1940 or 41? Pat was born in 1935, I think, and she looks like she could be around 5 here. My grandparents were married in 1941, but they met in high school and dated for several years through college, so this could be during their engagement or when they were newlyweds. It's definitely before my dad was born.
current mood: sleepy
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| Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
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11:09 pm - Gifts of the rainy season
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Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Back around New Year's Eve, gaius_de_mare and I ended up watching a documentary on PBS about the Young At Heart Chorus, a choir of senior citizens based in Northampton, MA, whose repertoire consists entirely of rock and pop songs-- some classics, but also a lot of contemporary, current music. The choir is fantastic: nearly all amateur musicians with varying levels of musical experience and ability, but so much joy in what they do. In the documentary, which was filmed over a 2-month rehearsal period during which the choir struggled to learn a lot of fairly challenging new repertoire in preparation for a show at the Academy of Music, the spectre of mortality among such an aged ensemble arises when one of the choir's most active members and best singers dies a week before the performance. He had been slotted to sing a duet of Coldplay's "Fix You" with a good choir friend, and there was much debate in the final week of rehearsal whether to still perform the piece or not; the climax of the film, and by far its most touching moment, comes at the gala performance, when the surviving duet partner (himself on oxygen for some serious health issues), sings the song solo.
A variety of signs along the road of today got me thinking about that performance again this evening: my grandfather's death yesterday; getting notice this morning that today was Mountain Day at Smith, and thinking of those beautiful autumn days in Northampton when I was an undergrad; the inclusion of this song as the finale in this week's episode of Glee, which I just watched tonight; and seeing a bright, lingering, perfect double rainbow over my street just after I got home this evening, as the sun broke through in the midst of a heavy rain shower like a benediction.
I can't embed the video, but here it is if you want to see it. It's worth it.
current mood: touched
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| Monday, October 3rd, 2011
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12:19 pm
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Yesterday I went up to Tillamook with Sabine and the rest of Tribalation to dance at the North Coast Seafood Festival. It was a nice trip, especially since I rode with Sabine so I didn't have to do any driving (3 hours each way), which meant I could knit for most of the drive (I'm so close to being done with my sweater, but now the stitch count is off, and I fear I might have to rip out the entire yoke to figure out where the problem is). It did make for a long day, though. The performance itself went pretty well, though in the first song I was dancing in a duet with Shaunia, and as we did a spinning exchange past each other to change lead, the long fringe we were both wearing tangled. In 10 years of dancing I've gotten plenty of things tangled in my own fringe (tassels, bracelets, rings, cane), but I can't say that I've ever gotten tangled in someone else's fringe! We exited out of our duet and back into the chorus, where we took turns picking at the knot until we got it undone. The costume change(s) went smoothly enough, and the crowd was appreciative. The festival itself was really small-- one room of food vendors (with a surprisingly high ratio of beer/wine booths to actual-food booths), and one room of crafts (where the stage also was), much like the basic offerings at any other craft show anywhere else-- baskets, pottery, photography, mosaics, tiles, beaded jewelry, etc. I didn't buy anything from the vendors, though I did really like the baskets. But I did get a light lunch before the show, where I had the best thing ever:
BABY OCTOPUS TACO
Also had some Tillamook ice cream after we danced, because yum.
Got home around 8, which was slightly later than I'd expected, and still had to make dinner. Cooked a Jamaican jerk-seasoned pork tenderloin, brown rice, and an acorn squash cooked with cinnamon and maple sugar, with a nice glass of zinfandel. My kitchen smelled so good! Very cozy and autumnal, which was a nice contrast to the chill and the rain outside.
Now that it's cooled off, I think the kitchen moth problems that have plagued me all summer are done. I only saw one moth this entire week, and no new ones have gone into the trap in a while. On the down side, I think the mice are back. :( I had blocked the hole under the stairs where they were getting in last spring, but in the last week or two, Schmendrick has started sitting in front of it and staring intently again, and I even thought I heard some scratching from inside that wall one night. This morning I opened my tea drawer and found that something had just barely chewed open a corner of one of the bags of loose tea in there. You'd think that now that there are two predatory mammals living in this house, one who has successfully moused in this very house and one who is totally spazzy and pounces on everything (even if she doesn't really know what she's doing), that this mouse thing wouldn't be a problem. Argh. I can't really put out any traps because the kitten gets into everything, but I don't know that just waiting for the cats to get better at hunting is the solution either. (Also, while I would love for Truffle to learn to actually catch and kill mice, given her propensity for carrying her toys around and putting a few of them in my bed every morning, I fear what I might wake up to if she did ever kill a mouse one night.)
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giggly
