cannibalclaire

Day 12: Whatever Tickles Your Fancy

carin took me out to the MN orchestra last night, and these are some thoughts on the evening.

i thought the conductor was going to be a girl because the program listed "courtney." no. it was a boy. a very pretty irish boy. and we were in the second row. he's got a nice backside. but then he'd turn around and speak all irishy and it was love. let me tell you, that boy knows how to wave his baton around, if you know what i mean.

the first violins second chair looked like al pacino. i had to stifle a lot of giggles through the concert because now i know what al pacino looks like playing a violin. and it's hilarious.

the second chair violist had really poor posture and a wondering foot. he kept looking around. i think he might be an idiot savant.

THEY USED AN ACTUAL CELESTA FOR THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY. i'm so sick of hearing hanging bells or *shudder* synths. what a nice surprise.

carin makes a good date. she puts up with my shenanegans.

during the nutcracker pas de deux, right after that lovely harp solo, there's a couple beats of silence. and in that silence, someone onstage moved their chair or something, because it sounded like a big fart. perfect timing. i enjoyed that.

i forgot that strauss wrote so many polkas. father of the waltz, yes. but also godfather of the polka. and was he german? yes. and were his polkas popular in austria? yes. you know who has two thumbs and can trace her family tree back to germany and austria? THIS GIRL. and? swedish. polka is in my blood on both sides. i was BORN to play the accordion.

did i mention there were cookies and cheesecake bites? because there were.

prokofiev's troika! fun!!!! SOOOOO russian. so much kenetic energy in a tune. love the russian composers.

it's bad enough that people have forgotten to shut the hell up at a rock concert, but now classical concerts too? LAME.

i could only see the floutist's face from the eyes up over his stand. you can really tell when he's playing because his eyebrows go CRAZY.

i don't think audiences should be encouraged to clap along with classical music. if i were in that orchestra, that would drive me batshit.

cello solos still make me piss myself a little.

( the list )

The year end reviews are coming in, and I wasn't really expecting anything for Pro Rata this year, but here's a nugget!
Julie Ann Nevill got named "Best Crossgender Performance" of 2009 by Lavender Magazine.

As lovely as it is to have a mention, I can't help but feel a little snubbed that he didn't chose to mention Noe (a crossgendered GALILEO). Ah well, in other places on his list there were things I didn't agree with.  I will note, though, that somethings, like .faust for costume design and Sally Wingert as Best Actress, were right on the money.


...

In other news, aside from The Hollisuckmybutt Hollidazzle Parade raining a plague of suburbanites down on my city and infesting Brit's, the concert last night was great! They did the Nutcracker Suite, which was delightful, and Troika, which was amazing.  It was general admission, and we got second row center, and there were cookies!

And it should be noted, duchess_of_pie  is a great date for the orchestra.  Especially when the conductor is a young Irish man.

odd people doing their odd people things. stupid/clever humor. food. cookies. hot chocolate after being out in the cold. furry animals. cartoons. good movies. better books. allowing laughter and inducing it in others. lights on trees after dark. completing projects. starting new projects. making lists. clean hair. clothes fresh from the dryer. highligting a new script. driving to good music. mom making breakfast. jack telling me stories about pie. goat sounds. fat little birds. solving puzzles. getting music out of an instrument. the way thread pulls through fabric. stripes. heartfelt compliments. happy friends.

Day 11: A Photo Of You Taken Recently

i believe this is the most recent photo taken by kris, of me in my "other coraline" costume, a week before halloween at julie ann's party. i like the composition. and my button eyes.




( the list )

Last night C and I went to the MN Orchestra to hear the Blind Boys of Alabama. What an excellent concert! (noted: the decidedly different crowd from the Ben Folds concert). They played a whole range of music; my two favorites were Amazing Grace sung to the tune of The House of the Rising Sun (I am not shitting you on that!) and a piece at the end of the concert that ended up being a 15 minute, on our feet, hooting and hollering, revivalist blowout. Tonight I'm going back, this time with duchess_of_pie for a Christmas concert (pure coincidence on my double feature, I was gifted tonight's tickets). Last year at this particular concert they played Handel's Messiah and The 1812 Overture. I am hopeful there will be a repeat performance. In January C and I are bringing along the Prusak clan for a screening of Chaplin's Gold Rush with the score performed live. Then in March my parents and I are rushing the Preservation Hall Jazz Band Concert (sadly C can't attend because of a Spanish Tragedy performance). Finally in May it's back with the Prusaks for Bernadette Peters. In all cases, a before or after trip to Brit's Pub (which is right across the street and has Guiness on tap and the best scotch eggs in town) is a must. ... I don't know that I can be a season ticket subscriber every year, but I plan to enjoy it while it lasts.

I've been Boom! watching the Kadoosh! trailer for Avatar Explode! the new James Wooosh! Cameron movie. It features a powersuit, many of them actually; a large mechanical internally-piloted anthropomorphic vehicle. I'll be the first to say, I'm pro-powersuit. People who know me know my love of powersuits. If there was some kind of fan club for the idea of a powersuit, well I'd join that. From Ripley using one to go head to head with a Queen Alien to the hapless Wikus finally discovering what the prawns have been sitting on all these years, I love the idea of powersuits. But why does the powersuit in the Avatar trailer hold a rifle with both hands? Puny hu-mans have to do that to prevent recoil making a firearm fly all over the place. But robotic arms? It should be pretty easy to build them able to absorb recoil. You don't build tanks with arms coming out of the hull holding the barrel down, do you? No, that's silly. And why give them fingers? Fingers, for god's sake, is there some space-needlework that needs doing? Are there only rotary dial phones on Pandora? Maybe he keeps everyone entertained in the garage by playing Billy Joel's greatest hits. I mean... obviously.

Day 10: A Photo Of You Taken Over Ten Years Ago

aw. i so wanted to put the brownie picture up. it's my favorite. unfortunately, i don't have a copy available to me right now. so i'll do the only pic that qualifies as older than 10 years.




this is circa 1997, back in the test years for renegade comedy olympics. i say test years because:

1) we got much better with time and stewing in our own stage-relationship juices. i know these are the early years by the white shirts. (we later got team-color shirts, and after that, actual jerseys with our names embroidered on them. fancy.)

2) manny is in the photo and she didn't stick with it long after we were cast. i, however, lost three wonderful years to it.

3) we're all standing in a fkn line. jody got pretty angry about that early on.

4) we were all still relying on "funny hats" to give color to the scene. yeah. we got over that shit eventually.

pictured here are michael pallanche, myself, manny wenberg, jody kujawa, and patrick mines in what is probably a very bad game of "play's the thing" with jody as anchor.

wow. i've grown a chest since then.



( the list )

Apparently a group of campaigners were at the Scottish parliament the other day, drumming up support for Haemochromatosis screening throughout Scotland. I'd never heard of this before. It sounds like you get sparkly blood. I'm expecting a rainbow to shoot out of my head the next time I have a nose bleed.

Haemochromatosis, known as the "celtic disease", causes an excess of iron in the blood and is a genetic disorder found prevalently in Ireland and Scotland. It can cause depression, heart disease, diabetes and liver disease. Which begs the question... how did they ever discover it? We've been punishing our arteries and livers for a long, long time, and in a maudlin kind of way too. How can you tell what is genetic and what is lifestyle-engendered symptoms? Somebody must have; maybe there are vat grown celts somewhere who are used as a control group... deprived of deep-fried meat pies and Irn Bru, no matter how much they ask for it.

I always assumed that having ginger hair was the celtic disease, but now I know that is something else. A curse of some sort, perhaps.

On the bright side, the treatment for haemochromatosis is regular bloodletting, so I think it is fair to say that we have a history of self-medication.

In my big list of books I've read (up to 139 so far this year... probably won't hit 150, but I'll definitely make 140, maybe 145?) I feel like next year I'll do a special designation for books I start and finish in the same day. Maybe I'll write down start and finish dates for all the books so we can see that, for example, it's taking me at least 4 months to read Lord of the Rings and I started and finished Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld today. Most of the ones that are one day reads are teen or kids books, but Leviathan is 440 pages which is nothing to sneeze at, I'd say. I was assisted today by the fact that I had a teen program scheduled for tonight which no one showed up for so I read while I was waiting in the room to see if anyone would show.

In Leviathan, Westerfeld has created a steampunk version of World War I. The Austrians and Germans are Clankers--their war machinery is all engine-driven walking around machines. On their side, we meet Alek, the son of the assassinated Archduke. On the British/French side, Darwin was able to not only theorize the process of evolution but use DNA to make hybrid animals like Huxleys--mostly jellyfish, these beasts fart hydrogen that lifts them aloft. Our British hero(ine) is Deryn Sharp who's dressed up as a boy to enter the Air Service as a midshipman. Alek and his loyal retainers are trying to escape the German empire that's trying to kill Alek. Deryn ends up on the huge whale-based airshit Leviathan on a strange scientific/diplomatic mission with a lady scientist. Add to this some breakneck storytelling, richly detailed descriptions and period-esque illustrations by Keith Thompson and you've got a book that grabbed me and didn't let go. Now I just have to wait for the sequel. Dang.

Day 09: A Photo You Took



( picspam under the cut, without explaination )

Apparently this is real, fully playable, made by former Disney Imagineer. via waxy

So, tonight was our second read-through/meeting about A Candid World, a Revolutionary War-era play by Dawn Brodey for the Lights Up! series at the Illusion Theatre.

My character is Davy, a Scottish soldier in the British army, and I am supposed to have a “thick Scottish accent.”  Now, I like to think that I’m pretty good with dialects, though I’ve discovered that (somehow) I’m better at speaking extemporaneously with a Scottish accent than I am at applying it to my actual lines in the script, but hey…I’ve got a month or so, right?

Anyway, tonight, I just so happened to find a YouTube channel of a Scottish gentleman named Mark Day, and I will make him my unwitting mentor.  Here is his scathing indictment of the Snuggie, featuring his cat Mr. Saunders.

Originally published at ClarenceWethern.com. You can comment here or there.

as you can tell, i'm not doing one of these every day. i like to stay away from the computer on weekends and enjoy what many are calling "real life."

it's not really all it's cracked up to be. but at least i'm trying something new.

okay. what's today's entry?

Day 08: A Photo That Makes You Angry/Sad

we take a christmas photo every year by the tree. it's different every year depending on who's around, when jo was married, if the boys were there. i like to see how we all change.

but this...he has infiltrated my very family history. dammit.



photoshop's not that hard to master, is it?


( the list )

i left work at noon on friday and my radiator tank had dipped two inches. i called my dad and he got very quiet. not a good sign. obviously things had gone from code red to code no way.

on the way home dad called my cell to tell me he's rented a trailer and is heading up to get me. i parked in the spot right behind the bus stop so he had room to pull in. i'm lucky the space was open.

by the time he picked up the trailer and made it to the cities, bam. rush hour. we loaded up the car, all the while a cop sat in her squad car behind us. at first i thought she might write us a ticket for being in the bus stop, but dad figured she was just running the plates of my car and the trailer to make sure everything is copacetic. and it was. my plates are still registered for mazeppa.

and once we got the car up there...i noticed all the green fluid oozing out from underneath. we both winced. that couldn't be good.

the drive out of the cities was not too horrendous. even though 35W was rush hour grid, i was surprised at how easily we were able to change lanes. people can be nice when they see you're towing sadness, i guess.

so my dad left home around 1pm. by the time we got the car to elmer's (my dad's buddy that is an amazing mechanic) and then back home, it was 7.15 or so.

so hooray for dad, spending half a day in a truck (much of it in rush hour that he's not used to, with a trailer) to come and hero me out.

it could have been worse. the engine block could have been cracked. it could have been better, bad hoses or something. as it was, my luck ran right down the middle. the radiator was completely rotted out.

chances are, if i'd driven down there (stopping every 15 minutes to refill the antifreeze), i could have made it. but better safe than the possibility of a burned up engine.

it was expensive, but elmer's the best and i only really had to pay for the new radiator. (it's so shiny!) the same service would have cost me double or triple up here, so i can't really complain. and the fact that he was willing to work on it on a saturday? priceless. it helps to have old friends in the car biz.

so now everything under my hood is less than a year old, save the engine. if i go and replace the starter and keep an eye on my struts, i should have little to no problem with the civic until she dies of rust or congestive engine failure. i'm giving her 2 1/2 more years.

time to start saving up and enjoying the time we have left.

meantime, i got to spend time with my folks, see my nephews, work on some stitching without much distraction, and get my mom set up on facebook. and she cooked me waffles and bacon and tacos. turned out to be a good weekend after all!

I may have (read totally was) sucked into a Who vortex last night. I watched, I think, 6 episodes of the 2005 series. I want to watch more today but am going to run errands first.

To do today:
MOA: Lane Bryant, Lush, bead store (will couplandesque be there? we'll see)
Co-op: cider vinegar for hair
YWCA: elliptical fun time.
Library: return overdue book

But now I'm charging my phone which was singing its low battery song, so maybe now it behooves me to watch an episode (and work on Christmas knitting) while waiting for that to charge? Of course, I could shovel, but who wants to do that, really?

Good people of LiveJournal, for those of you that are Doctor Who fans, do I need to start watching them with stuff from the pre-2005 series? I need a new show now that I'm done with Battlestar Galactica, and it seems to me like that might be a winner. Plus they're all available streaming from Netflix. I'll probably start watching them right now since I need something to watch while knitting and I'm not feeling like the Office episodes I haven't yet seen would hit the spot. I suppose I could always rewatch the last episode of Glee...

For the last ten days? Nowhere really. I had game night at my house where no red wine was spilled all over Apples to Apples cards. I went to rehearsal for my next show. I got offered another show, probably, for February. I worked a whole bunch this last week. I finished a bowling league (in 18th out of 20 places, woo!). I thought about taking voice lessons again and trying to audition for fancier choirs. I sang Messiah last night and am going to sing it again this afternoon. I discovered the cat was using a laundry basket with some laundry in it as a litter box. I freaked out a little about that.

I went to Roller Derby for a friend's birthday and at the afterparty at Grumpy's ran into a friend from high school. Kind of surreal, but cool. We're friends on Facebook so it wasn't totally a surprise but that's ok.

I made delicious beet/apple/mozzarella salad and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. I thought about making coffee toffee swirls and didn't. I shoveled and didn't go to the Y as much as I would have liked. I applied for a job I probably won't get interviewed for, but it's a contract position that would only be for 10 months out of next year so that's probably ok, nothing ventured nothing gained.

The cat is sitting next to me now doing his purring/snoring thing.

I finished a pair of socks (the lime green ones) that I'd been working on since August. Still haven't taken pictures. It did free up my size 1 DPNs to make the next pair of socks--dad's Christmas gift. It's nice that my sister and her husband are doing their honeymoon over Christmas so we're not doing presents until 1/2. Extra time to finish!

On Wednesday, we bundled up as best we could and decided to walk to get our Christmas tree. There's an Ace Hardware a few blocks from us on Grand Ave that has a good selection.

We trudged to Caribou first. Éowyn was having a ball! She actually cried "Woo-Hoo!" on more than one occasion as she plopped her feet into the snow. There's no doubt she's native here and to the manner born. She just loved it.

Pink cheeks & all, we picked out a winner & made our way home. I felt like Paul Bunyan with a coffee in one hand and a tree perched on my shoulder, my beard starting to freeze up.

Nice to get it into the stand...smells awesome! Things have been really crazy with work and other commitments, so this was a well-needed respite. And there's nothing like the glow of lights on a tree.

Poor Éowyn dropped her mermaid ornament she picked out last year. Thankfully, just the tip of her tail broke. It's one of those blown-glass ones, so I'm surprised it didn't just totally shatter. She was in tears, poor thing. But all's well, and her mermaid still swims among the branches.

i'm trying not to be mad that my entire weekend was just ruined. i'm trying to count my blessings here.

you see, on my drive from work, i noticed that my wiper sprayers weren't working. this was troubling, especially in this weather on the highway.

but aaron and i had a date to see klingon christmas carol over at mixed blood (which was WAY too much fun, btw, and i thank aaron profusely for bringing me along), so i figured fine, i'll park in a ramp where there's light and check out the problem. (it's usually dark in the morning when i leave home and dark when i get to my car at night. there's usually nowhere to check out my car unless i'm at a gas station.)

i pull into the ramp, and the wiper sprayers work again. still. i'm gounna look under the hood. and my dad suspected i may have a bad radiator tube, so i checked that out too...and my reserve tank was nearly empty.

meaning i have a radiator leak.

i walked across the bridge to bobby and steve's to get some 50/50 mix and poured it in, coached by my dad over the phone. i get done with just enough time to meet aaron at appointed time.

this morning, i checked the reserve tank again. it was lower than the line. i call around for pressure check quotes and it's fkn expensive. my dad suggests that i take half a day and drive down so our guy can handle it.

this means i will be driving for a long while this afternoon. because i have to pull off and stop every 15 minutes to check the tank.

it also means i have to go out of town again and that my one free weekend i have this month has just been taken away from me. i had this list of chores and things piling up that i was going to get done...no more. i guess i get to carry stress and unfinished business with me into the new year. FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK.

not to mention, this is the worst time of year to have to budget for this.

bullshit friday.

*sigh*

blessing #1) if my wiper sprayers hadn't thought to act up, i never would have looked under the hood. = tank dries up = radiator leaks out = engine dies = no more car.

blessing #2) if aaron and i hadn't had plans, i wouldn't have anywhere to park and check things out.

blessing #3) my dad was home and able to help me though it.

blessing #4) i didn't drive to madison last weekend and therefore probably saved my car.

blessing #5) this came up on a weekend i have time to deal with it, rather than next weekend when my life gets busy again and there are people (and pets) relying on me.

blessing #6) i have vacation time to take and my team informs me that they have no work for me anyway.

blessing #7) klingon christmas carol. hee. how can you beat a night of star trek humor? a show almost entirely in klingon? impressive. ben chadwick as the ghost of long night present was the shit.


UPDATE: now my dad has rented a trailer and is actually driving up to get me. somehow, i think this is probably a more expensive route than the $65 pressure check. but there's now a possibility that something is very wrong with the radiator itself and he only trusts his friend to fix it. which will save me in the long run.

and here i thought i'd escaped my annual thanksgiving disaster. but at least i have the best dad in the world to help me.

Every year, Bob asks me what music CD I'd like and Cora asks which book I'd like and I always say, oh, I don't know and they buy me something they think I'd like. Finally, this year I had an answer for Bob. I found myself, the other day, trying to do something I haven't done in a really long time: buy a "Compact Disc", like some kind of goddamned caveman.

I didn't find the CD I was looking for, so when Bob called to ask what I wanted for Christmas, I was able to answer, for once. Honestly, half of the joy of receiving this present will be knowing that Dr Bob walked into a music store, approached a young bohemian person who works there and said "Yes, hi, I was looking for a Mastodon album." If you hear a popping sound from the direction of Northfield, it will be because one of Bob's former students sees him walk out of a store with Crack The Skye AND THEIR HEAD EXPLODES.

So far I've been living on Mastodon's very generous internet presence (here for Oblivion, here for Oblivion + Acting!), but I have a hard time believing this isn't the kind of album that is best listened to from beginning to end. You know, like people used to do back in the olden days.
Despite all of this, what do I have stuck in my head?

I have this stuck in my head:

Goddamnit South Park, now I can't get the song out of my head and I don't even know the words. I hate you Kenny.