July 3, 2009

Another typical day

I am going to bed early tonight.  No, really.*  Which means that since it’s already the middle of the night by normal standards I’d better get my skates on.  What was that thing I was learning to do that I seem to have mislaid again?  Write short?    Yes.  This is one of my life’s tragic burdens;  an inability to write short.**  

But I have managed to let myself be suckered into helping Vicky ring the Old Eden bells up tomorrow morning.  Whimper.  Saturdays sometimes approach the concept of a day off in my cradle-to-grave dash and I’ve been noticing my lack of Saturday-like Saturdays lately:  too many people are getting married.  Can’t you just live together?  I’m already down to ring the wedding tomorrow afternoon we need to get the bells up for tomorrow morning, which punches a large hole in the afternoon;  now I’m going to have a punctured morning as well.  But if I didn’t do it Vicky would have to do it by herself, not that she doesn’t frequently get entire towers of bells up by herself, but she shouldn’t always have to and her usual weekend aide is unavailable.***    And at least the ringing-up part of the wedding deal does not involve waiting around for late brides.

But every now and then it occurs to me that I have an insane life.  Today . . . I got up early enough to do some watering before taking hellhounds for a moderately brisk dawdle, it having cooled off significantly†.  No rain though.  We had all these dark, business-meaning clouds louring around this morning and I courageously didn’t take my raincoat in the hopes that they would not be able to resist drenching me . . . but they had a pressing engagement in Shropshire or Hong Kong.†† 

I didn’t have time to do any more watering:  I had to hare down to the mews to attack my canons.†††  I allowed three hours for this. This is very exciting.  I usually manage to hack out one or two two-hour stretches in a week for bending music in directions it was never meant to go, but three hours doesn’t happen.  Of course I spent a lot of it fighting with Finale, but I got the sillier canon of the two–the one I want to post here–tweaked and squeezed and fluffed up in some semblance of what I’m trying to do.  Oisin looked at it, looked at me, looked at it, and said, only you.    Yes well.  He also said, if you’re going to compose in 6/8 would you please write in 6/8?  Oh.  Oops.  It used to be in 6/8.  But I tend to revert to 4/4 as soon as I feel out of my depth and . . . I started to feel out of my depth pretty soon.‡  

Now here is a good example of what I mean about composing teaching you things:  two years ago I wouldn’t have known what he meant.  I knew that 6/8 is different from 4/4 and I could count it out for you correctly but I wouldn’t really have been able to tell you why something that has the right number of beats in a bar might nonetheless not be right for the time signature that some frelling incompetent has put at the head of the page, nor why one time signature fits and another one doesn’t.  I still don’t know it very well, obviously, but I knew instantly why Oisin said what he did.

So I said oops.  And we compromised:  Silly Canon is now in 3/4. 

Then I raced back to the mews to plunge into PEGASUS.  My heroine is contemplating the Meaning of Life.  Feh.  I can trash this bit.

Then I took hellhounds for a . . . hurtle.  It really is cooling off.  And Darkness produced more gloop.  And I cursed the gods and . . . raced back to the mews, bundled hellhounds into back of Wolfgang, and tore off to the vets’, to get there before closing time on Friday . . . it having occurred to me it might be worth trying worming:  Darkness picks up more unnameable substances than Chaos does.‡‡ 

Then we went on to Third House to do some watering there.  And while I was there I dropped off the latest carboot-full of carpet samples I’ve been carrying around for the last three or four days.  Not that I had time to look at them in prospective situ.

Then I went bell ringing.‡‡‡  Which is when the topic of the ringing-up of bells tomorrow morning was broached.  And you could say I lost.

Then I came home and . . . I’m not sure how this happened, but I found myself on my knees planting marigolds and geraniums.  When it got dark I came indoors.

I’m pretty sure I had dinner.  And I know I fed the hellhounds because the part they didn’t eat is still in their bowls.§

And now I am going to bed so I can get up tomorrow morning and hurtle hellhounds unusually early so I can ring up some bells. . . . 

* * *

 * Well, really on my terms.  But really. 

** Yes, PEGASUS is still increasing exponentially.  However I was looking at the Connecting Passage I was storming through today and thought . . . hey!  I can get rid of some of this!  –I briefly considered the possibility of posting PEGASUS outtakes^  here but I don’t see any way.  I’d have to explain the context and I don’t want to explain the context. 

^ Always looking for blog entries.  

*** This is Niall.  And the reason he’s unavailable is . . . wait for it . . . he’s going to be ringing handbells tomorrow morning. 

† It was 95 in my garden yesterday.  Today it barely hit 80. 

†† But the really bad news is that Darkness has the streamings-at-both-ends again.  [weeps wildly]   My second opera is on Monday and I’m going.  It was not one of our most enjoyable dawdles for a variety of reasons.  Garden Designers from Hell are back.  These are the charming fellows who like to park in our cul de sac when they’re working on one of the gardens on Main Street, because access is off a footpath that runs from the cul de sac.  I understand pulling up here to unload but noooo.  They unload, and leave their truck there while they get on with whatever.  My posh neighbour says they’re not even very good garden designers. 

††† Rustling sounds as canons pull their priestly vestments over their heads in a protective manner. 

‡ My depth being about half an inch. 

‡‡ I had cut off two bits of chicken to give them after the pills to make sure they swallowed, although, considering their attitude toward food, it is interesting that (a) they are surprisingly good about having things poked down their throats and (b) they do actually like chicken.  Usually.  They were definitely in a mood for chicken tonight and my hands smelt of chicken so they were falling over backwards worrying that they were missing the chicken. 

‡‡‡ We had seven and Cordelia, who is learning plain hunt.  It’s still hot, and very hot in the tower, and we were mostly not at our best, except for Penelope, who had had the day off and rang brilliantly.  It’s amazing what not being exhausted will do for your ringing.  I got through a touch of Stedman doubles so I am being allowed to live.  

§ They are crashed out and twitching faintly.  Perhaps they are dreaming of meals entirely of chicken.

July 3, 2009 | Filed Under bell ringing, critters, garden, music, too much 

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I had writer's block once. It was the worst fifteen minutes of my life. -- Robert Silverberg