Guest Post by Black Bear
A little bit about crossbows
So a while back on some forum thread or other, I incautiously babbled a little about medieval crossbows and archery, and my limited experience of same. Strangely enough, Robin then asked me* if I’d consider guest-blogging a bit about archery, and I said yes, with a couple of caveats. The first caveat is, I am a terrible archer. I’m not just being modest—I don’t have great vision to begin with, and astigmatism to boot, and when I shoot on a range there is a better than even chance that my arrows will end up in the target one or two lanes down from my own, if they end up in a target at all. I imagine if I were to spend as much time shooting as Robin does bell-ringing, I might get good at it (though I’m not sure what the archer’s equivalent of ringing Kent would be) but as it is, I’m pretty awful, and I’m sure some people reading this are far better archers than I.
The second caveat is that I am only speaking here of my direct experience with longbows and my own medieval-style crossbow; it’s about as close to a medieval crossbow as one can get in the modern era, honestly, but there’s still plenty of room for argument about what medieval bows and crossbows could or could not do, and you’re welcome to go read any one of thousands of articles on the subject if you’d like further info.
Now, that said–
The basic anatomy of a crossbow is pretty simple. You all know how a basic bow works, right? Of course you do. A longbow, a la Robin Hood, is a 5′-6′ long piece of wood (usually more than one kind of wood, in layers) with a string holding it in a flexed position; to fire, you have to have the strength to pull that string back 30″ or so and hold it while you aim. Your arrows usually have 3 feathers at the end to provide flight stability, and when you release the string, the arrow is launched at your target. (Or at the one three lanes over, if you’re me.) A crossbow, while it works on the same principle, has a slightly more complex firing process.
The body of a crossbow consists of a wooden stock, at right angles to a metal bowstave called the prod, or the lath. The prod is a lot shorter than a longbow—mine’s 28″ tip to tip. However, because it’s metal, it’s got a lot more tensile strength per inch than a wood bow. So you can get much more power, inch for inch, out of a crossbow prod than a longbow stave. The prod needs to be able to flex a bit, so it’s held to the nose of the stock with a binding of sinew or linen twine, wrapped around a chunk of wood called the block. If the prod were nailed into the stock, the stock would crack from the force when the crossbow was fired; the bindings allow the prod to flex away from the stock without destroying it. Attached at the nose of the crossbow is often a metal loop, or stirrup, which is used to help you pull the bow; you brace your foot in the stirrup, then yank the string back to the lock position with both hands.
About halfway back along the stock is the mechanism that really makes a crossbow a horse of a different color. As I can’t remove the plate on the side of my own crossbow to give you a good photo, I’ve made this crude drawing for you instead.
The nut is a small wheel of wood or horn, rotating on a little axle; it sticks up a bit above the top of the stock. This top part of the nut is cut so that it’s got a hook to it, with a notch down its middle to hold the bolt. When you pull the string back, you catch it over the hook, and the nut holds the string in a pulled position as long as you like. A notch at the bottom of the nut is shaped so that the trigger of the crossbow slots into it and keeps it from spinning freely on its axle; when you press the trigger, it slips out of the notch, and the nut is now free to whiz around. So to load and fire a crossbow, you pull the string back to the nut and hook it; you put a bolt (also called a quarrel) into the groove along the top of the stock with its butt against the string, you aim it at a target—taking all the time you like, as the bow’s being held tense by the nut rather than by your muscle power—and then pull the trigger. The nut spins around, the string boings forward, and your bolt is propelled off the nose of the stock and toward the hearts of your enemies.
The assumption that crossbows are slow to reload is based on, I think, ideas of heavy crossbows–125# + on the pull–which have to be cranked back with a special mechanism called a cranneqin. But a light crossbow, 60-70# pull (which is a heavy draw weight for a longbow, but light for a crossbow) is easily pulled back with both hands if you hook your foot into the stirrup. So if you’re in a sitting position with one leg stretched out in front of you, you’ve got your crossbow loaded, you place it against or atop your shoulder, aim and pull the trigger. The moment the bolt’s gone, you can drop the crossbow down onto your waiting foot, put your hands atop the string and either straighten out your leg or lean back to pull the string to the nut in about 1 second. If you’re super-strong and only used one hand to cock it, your other hand’s already catching up the next bolt, you drop it into the groove while you’re swinging the stock back up off your foot and to your shoulder again, and bang! All in all about 5 seconds between bolts, if you don’t bobble anything. Compared to a longbow, the whole process requires a lot less strength and precision, and leverage is working for rather than against you. Of course, you’re sitting on the ground, so in a melee situation the crossbowmen are doomed as soon as the enemy gets close enough to rush the pavise wall… and it’s harder to aim accurately from a lower position, because crossbows have such a flat trajectory. (When I first started shooting, I lost half my bolts on the first day because UNLIKE arrows, which tend to land at an angle in the ground with the fletching showing if they miss the target, bolts hit the ground nearly flat and promptly bury themselves about 1/2″ below the surface of the soil, and frequently they disappear right up to the fletch and you need a metal detector to find the bastards.) And even from a standing position, a light crossbow can be reloaded and fired in about 12 seconds, is my general sense of the thing. I’m likely to spill my quarrels or hit myself in the face with the stock if I’m trying to move that quickly, mind you, but I’ve no doubt others more talented than myself have no problem with it.
This isn’t to say a very good longbowman (or woman!) couldn’t fire, reload, draw, and fire that fast, or even faster. But because you have to hold your pull while aiming, and because longbow arrows are longer and therefore a bit more unwieldy to maneuver into position, the ability to shoot both quickly AND precisely with a longbow is much harder to come by, I think.
That’s all the technical stuff. Robin also wanted to know what it feels like. I’d say it feels… well, different from anything else I’ve done. A crossbow is heavy—they’re made of wood and metal, after all, and mine’s walnut—so there’s a feeling of solidity to it that my longbow lacks. It doesn’t kick, really, as you generally put it atop your shoulder rather than against it; but you lay your cheek against the wood to sight and fire, and so you feel very close with the thing, so to speak. You can smell the wood, and the oil, and the cedar of the bolts. When you pull the trigger, the whole thing kind of thrums for a second… I personally find the crossbows appealing in a tactile way that longbows aren’t, as I like Things With Moving Parts, and the mechanism here is so simple and beautiful. So, there you have it—my ode to geeky medieval weaponry. (And if you’re at all interested in owning a medieval type crossbow, I recommend checking out New World Arbalest**; David built mine for me 20 years ago, and he’s still doing beautiful work and is a very nice guy to boot.)
* * *
* STRANGELY? What do you mean, STRANGELY? –Ed.
** http://www.crossbows.net/ I’ve just been over there having a look, and it’s seriously cool. Note: I do NOT need a crossbow. NOT.
Midnight
That was frelling midnight that just struck . . . oh GODS no that was midnight HALF AN HOUR AGO, that was midnight thirty that just struck, I was going to stop and hit the blog half an hour ago . . . and I’m still sitting here in a daze of PEGASUS. Oh, ungleblarg, midnight . . . and that means one less/fewer* day left before The Eighth of October. Absolute Final Do-or-Die Due Date. Aaaaugh. Aaaaugh.
Colin last night and Vicky tonight both asked me if I’d finished the proofs. Proofs? What proofs? Proofs? Oh—those proofs. The ones that I had my head very far down over this time last week—so far down that I was doing things like reading them at weddings I’d be ringing handbells at in another few minutes and tower practises whenever somebody hadn’t said my name. Oh yes, I said airily, I got them in on Monday, which is when they were due, because I’m just so professional.**
NOW ALL I HAVE TO DO IS FINISH THE NEW NOVEL.
I can’t decide whether things like music lessons*** and bell practises† serve to maintain some tenuous grasp on life outside novel-finishing†† or whether they’re just trying to force me to recognise that the Eighth of October is coming too soon and I should be reading the want ads for grocery cart corral attendants.
Stay tuned for future bulletins on this compelling subject. . . .
* * *
* I can usually do less/fewer, but not at midnight-thirty when I’m still working . . . although the fact I can’t is probably an indication that it is a good thing I have now stopped working.
** I love that word. Professional. It has such a shining veneer of snappy sharp briefcases containing snappier sharper laptops and squared-up tidy inboxes each and every page of whose contents is known and in process by the person responsible. You send your proof corrections in on time and no one has to know that you nearly have to pole vault to get to your desk on account of the Open Plan Inbox which tends to accumulate around it, or that your idea of a sharp briefcase is an elderly canvas tote bag that says Blue Hill Books on it, which will no longer come white again even when it’s washed, and you’re afraid to push this issue for fear of obliterating the logo, whereupon it would become a dirty white cotton tote bag with a hill-shaped smudge on one side.
And, speaking of laptops . . . about thirty seconds before I had to rip out of here to go to my piano/mutable music lesson Azmodeus^ showed up with my laptop, and in a state of considerable suppressed glee, the glee being Azmodeus’, that is, not the laptop’s, although the laptop was probably expressing a certain amount of silent solid-state relief. So, guess why my laptop has been growing increasingly erratic the last few weeks? Because the keyboard base was full of crumbs. And Azmodeus and his minions have replaced the frelling keyboard.
I was at this point, I believe, supposed to collapse in embarrassment and shame. Crumbs in the keyboard!^^ Tsk tsk tsk! I looked at Azmodeus blankly. You can’t clean it? I said. No, he said, there’s no way in through the membrane. You have to replace the keyboard because I eat while I work? I said. How stupid a system is that? How many computer users out there also eat at their computers? If I didn’t eat at my computer I’d have to give up eating, because I am a very slow eater^^^ and if I’m not working/eating^^^^ I’m probably pulling on a bell rope or hurtling hellhounds or something. ARRRRRGH. And I’m going to have to replace the keyboard again every six months or something because there is a staggering design fault in this laptop? Next time I want a keyboard you can clean, I said.
^ Have I told you that Azmodeus isn’t best pleased at being named after a demon? Hey. This is the blog of the hellgoddess. Pull yourself together.
^^ How . . . unprofessional.
^^^And I’m not exactly breaking land speed records at work either
^^^^ Besides, I think chewing stimulates blood circulation in the head area.
*** I’d baled last week because I had the handbell wedding Friday afternoon and rescheduling was too complicated. Then this week has Not Been Good for concentration outside novel-finishing and the piece I’d been working on—before Azmodeus took my laptop and Finale away from me—wasn’t ravishing me with its original brilliance so I don’t think Oisin is missing much and I’d had this idea that while brain was in short supply maybe I could do a little more with fingers but it turns out that fingers need slightly more direction than tired preoccupied brain felt like giving them^ so that hasn’t worked out too well either. But there had to be something Oisin could do with me so I went anyway. I have the uneasy memory nine hours later that I may have spent most of my time ranting about one thing or another.^^
I had, however, in my brain-scattered haste, because I’d been working on the frelling novel before Azmodeus interrupted my flight out the door, snatched up the wrong music, and arrived with Caro and Panis and He Was Despised. Oisin was playing for a funeral and got back late^^^ and discovered me picking out He Was Despised on the piano with one finger and looking worried. I’ve been saying this for a fortnight or so in the blog, that Any Minute Now the real work begins with Blondel, and I think it just has, with He Was Despised. It’s been nice, these first few weeks, especially with finishing the novel going on in the foreground, that just doing my exercises and trying to learn a few tunes has been enough. Unfortunately I have a very acute memory of saying to Oisin this afternoon that when I’ve been singing a bit longer I’ll come in with the wrong music deliberately some day and make him play accompaniment. I’ll hold you to that, Oisin said, way too promptly. Music teachers. They’re all sadists. ^^^^
^ I Vant to Be Alone+
+ It’s just a little Mozart!
^^ Publishers, publishing schedules, time, lack of time, novels that need finishing, weather—which is being gorgeous and I’d rather be outside planting bulbs—lack of brain, etc
^^^ He organs for a lot of funerals, as you might expect. He says you discover the most extraordinary things about the ordinary people you’ve been saying hello to on the street for the last x years. He played the organ for the funeral of a man recently who when he was a young man had been a POW in Italy during WWII, escaped, and walked home. Across occupied France. And casually caught a fishing boat across the Channel. And Oisin had known him only as a nice random little old man. . . .
^^^^ Very like obsessive handbell ringers
† Between finishing the novel and some erratic attendance by other people at practises recently I have been slipping under the radar. But Colin^ came to our tower practise tonight, looked at the assembled, which with him and Anthea there were an assembled, looked at me, smiled a smile with too many teeth, and said ‘Kent’. I dove for my methods books and sat out the first touches. Kent Minor (six bells) when it came was a little ragged but I did get through it, and Grandsire Triples too, although triples—all eight of our bells ringing, but only seven of them in the pattern with the tenor always ringing last in each row—still feels like such alien territory to me because I so rarely ring on eight bells, and I only learn anything by mega-grind. Whereupon Niall suggested Little Bob Major. Major is all eight bells in the method—the tenor rings ‘inside’ with the rest, so when you’re ringing you count to eight, not to seven, as you do with triples. I can ring treble to major—treble being the easy, straightforward, no wiggly bits bell in most standard methods—but Penelope had already declared she was tired and was going to ring the treble. Whereupon Edward turned to me with the too-many-teeth smile and explained what a nice easy pattern Little Bob Major is. Um. Well . . . I did get through it, although it is a very good thing that it ended when it did, as I was about to go seriously off the rails. So I can now say—with a slightly bemused look—that I have rung inside to major.
^ Speaking of sadistic music teachers, and I’ve already said that change ringing is music
†† I originally wrote ‘on reality’ but I think that’s over-hopeful.
In Which I Am Saved by Footnotes
It’s been a long, crummy, pustular kind of day for a wide, sky-embracing rainbow variety of reasons, most of them unrepeatable*.
. . . In fact it’s been such a lousy day** I can’t think of anything blog-suitable that I have the energy to write about.*** So maybe I’ll just go to bed early.† . . . Although perhaps after I scare myself a little more with He Was Despised. I suspect Blondel wouldn’t wear it if I rearranged the accompaniment so the singer doesn’t have to keep coming in by herself. Meanwhile they’ve taken away my computer with Finale on it, I forgot to print out what I’ve been working on so I can’t work on it, and I have my protean music lesson with Oisin tomorrow. Maybe he could help me with the accompaniment to He Was Despised.
* * *
* But I had rung Penelope, who gets home earlier, to ask her to remind Niall^ to bring the milk for handbells^^ this evening^^^ and she said that Niall had a vicious head-cold and had come home from work early yesterday and was still fairly grotty when he went to work this morning and might cancel. Be still my heart, I said, or words to that effect. I could so use another two hours to try and drag this day out of the toxic swamp of real life.
But, as Colin said when they showed up, Niall cancel handbells? You’re raving. —He’s right. Of course I was. Niall will be climbing out of the coffin at his funeral and trying to interest the assembled in a little plain hunt.^^^^
But Colin further made the mistake of asking how I was and I started telling them and they got this boy look on their faces (oh gods! Girl stuff!) and it very nearly managed to make me laugh.^^^^^ And then practise was going to be a disaster because I haven’t had any time for some reason to do any homework this week^^^^^^ but I had promised that after we got through last Friday’s wedding I would agree to try to learn something new. Well, new-ish, in this case a touch on a different pair of bells in the eternal, the monumental bob minor.
This is one of the horrors of handbells: every pair of bells within a method is a whole different Matterhorn to scale with a blizzard in your teeth and a yeti yanking at your ankles. In the tower, while taking the plunge of ringing a different bell than the one you’ve learnt a new method on can be pretty hairy, it’s still the same method, you’re just starting from point C or D instead of point A or B. With handbells you have to remember A AND B or C AND D, (or E and F, and if you have four ringers, you also have G and H to worry about, and if you have five . . . ) as they proceed in their diabolically non parallel ways through whichever method you’re torturing yourselves with. Okay, next time I start rampaging about handbells, I’ll post a method with the double handbell lines running through it for your delectation.
So I was pried off my trebles (one and two) and put on the tenors (five and six) and at first I was ringing like someone who has had a crummy day and a book due in a fortnight and then by tea break I had somehow inadvertently got through the touch we were practising. And after tea we rang it again, and first Colin went wrong and then Niall went wrong!!!!! —But he has a head cold. So it doesn’t count. But it counts that I did not go wrong. (Only because someone else went wrong first, but as I said a little earlier/a little lower, whatever works.)
^ Look, whatever works. I’m a practical feminist.+
+ Yes, all right, to a lot of us those are fighting words. But you do choose your battles, and in this case I’d rather have the milk.
^^ Which Hannah, writing to congratulate me on a wedding well rung+ typed ‘hangbells’. I like this a lot. I may adopt it.
+ And there’s another one in the offing. Saints preserve us#, we’re beginning to become known. It’s another of these treacherous wife deals too, as I understand it: someone Anthea had been shooting her mouth off to then approached Colin about a wedding in another of these frelling churches that ought to have bells and don’t. What this country needs is more bells in its bell towers.
If Peter tells me in high glee some day that one of his bridge club members has some offspring getting married and the only thing missing is that the church has no bells, and that he said well, my wife rings handbells . . . I shall grow violent.
# No, preferably saints carry us away and hide us. Me anyway. Niall and Colin decided, while I was making the tea, that I am elected to try to fascinate Marilyn into learning hangbells. Seduce your own nubile virgins, say I. . . . Although it would be nice to have four. Hmmm. Maybe Niall and I can gang up on her next Wednesday tower practise.
^^^ Happy to provide the tea-type food.+ You want cow juice in your tea, however, you have to bring it.
+ Today we had chocolate cake and cranberry-white-chocolate-and-pecan cookies.
^^^^ He will have stipulated being buried with his hangbells, of course.
^^^^^ That was before Colin told us there was some wretched woman sniffing around about another handbell wedding.+
+ I know I’m protesting too much. But anyone with paralytic stage fright who has successfully brought off a public performance of a difficult skill will understand where I’m coming from. In the first place, what’s the point of learning a difficult skill if you’re not going to demonstrate it somehow?# And I consider music, including bell music, something you’re supposed to share. Geez. There’s nothing like self-persecution. I’m going to be buying a bed of nails soon. You can get anything on eBay.
# I still do not understand why I fell for handbells to begin with. Why? Why? I know I let myself be entrapped initially (as I’ve told you) because I felt I owed Niall for all the towers he went to with me when I was a baby ringer and desperate for more time on a rope%, but it doesn’t explain why I didn’t gnaw my way out of the trap at first opportunity%% and hightail it for Buenos Aires.%%% There must be easier ways to stave off senility. Too late now.
% And a baby ringer is a lot more welcome at a tower not her own if she’s bringing a good ringer with her
%% Possibly because there have been no opportunities.
%%% Where there are no hangbells. They’re confiscated at the border.
^^^^^^ I am, arguably, with piano, composing, voice, and two kinds of bells, taking a full frelling course load, as well as pursuing two hellhounds and a literary career. Oh, and the thirty roses. And the bulb orders have started arriving.
** Toads! Wasps! Basilisks! Missing car keys! Mmmph! Mrrrmmph! Mmmrrrrgggglepppph!
*** There are times when you don’t really want to disturb a strapping, well-knit case of the doldrums with cheeriness and light.
† With a few more chapters of TWICE BORN. Yaaay.
Guest blog by Jeanne Marie
The Problem with Pits
Stormgoddess wrote on Tue, 04 August 2009
“I love bully breeds, and I get really bent out of shape when people malign them. … Of the dozens of AmStaffs, American Bulldogs, and Pit Bull terriers I have met on parks and sidewalks in the past nine months, one was dog aggressive. …
Robin responded:
“I apologise for being a wet blanket but let’s not get totally carried away. I’ve already said I love bullies–and Dobermanns–and I’ve known some sweetheart Rotties. And Alsatians. Etc. BUT. These are also dogs with STRONG aggressive/protective/guardian/territorial instincts and there are bad ones like there are bad anything. One of the scariest dogs in this town is some kind of Staffie cross.”
In my opinion, both Stormgoddess and Robin have valid points. I think that, while MOST dogs are good and loving souls, some dogs, through poor handling, abuse, breed heritage, or individual temperament can be scary and downright dangerous. It’s always wise to respect the fact that these lovely creatures are originally descended from large, fearsomely-toothed pack animals who kill deer and elk for a living. I absolutely LOVE my two dogs…but, even I have had problems with my lovely critters. Problems that have largely come from breed heritage mixing uneasily with circumstances. It’s not all sweetness and light, being the loving alpha-momma to a small pack that includes an AmStaff mix, and I thought I’d share a story from the trenches.
Cece is a 6 and a half year-old AmStaff (pit bull) and Lab mix, who came to me as a three month-old puppy, abandoned and dashing around the parking lot of the church where I work. When I took Cece in, I had very little knowledge or experience with bully breeds. I therefore spent some time doing research on their breed heritage. According to my reading, in general, AmStaffs are very people-friendly, but tend towards dog-aggression – that’s the specific traits they were bred for. Pit fighting dogs needed to be eager to rip into another dog, able to withstand a great deal of pain without giving up the fight, and then had to accept medical treatment from whichever handler was on offer. So, any dogs without those traits – dog-aggressive, high pain tolerance and people-friendly – were routinely culled (and sadly, still are…). The books recommended early good quality puppy-socialization, but to be cautious and watchful of any and all dog interactions after 2-4 years of age. What I noticed with Cece is that she was very submissive in her OWN defense; she crawled, head hanging and frightened, into my lap her first Thanksgiving with my family, when my sister’s Chihuahua-mixes lit into her (even though she was already three times their size). Cece routinely rolled over and showed her belly during the initial-dog-greetings-rituals whenever we went to the dog park. When on walks, she was always happy to see other dogs, whining and either trying to lick them or show her belly. She would on rare occasions stand in front of me at the off-leash park, to “protect” me from other dogs’ greetings, but even that was pretty passive – she just stood there with her tongue hanging out, until the other dog invited her to play, rather than trying to greet me.
The first hints of any dog aggression I ever witnessed Cece display were in Charlie’s* first months at our home. She was around 4 at the time that we took Charlie in, and he was about 4 months old. Initially, I didn’t leave them alone and loose together (unsupervised dog interactions are counseled against for bully breeds), but let them work on their social skills when I was home with them both. After about 6 months of quiet interactions, there were two specific occasions that Cece got angry with Charlie, and I wasn’t close enough to stop the ensuing fight.
The first incident was over food. I hadn’t yet learned that it’s wise to feed dogs separately. One night, I had gotten home much later than expected from work, and they were both pretty hungry. I put their food in their respective bowls, then dashed off to the restroom – and mere moments later, heard a fight break out. I wasn’t able to get out of the bathroom before Cece had sustained three slashes to her face and a puncture to her lower jaw. Charlie wasn’t injured at all, to my surprise, but Cece refused to be called off, nor did she back down, even though she was coming off the worst. I had to physically pull Cece away, then got both of them down into submissive positions and growled at them, to let them know that this behavior wasn’t acceptable in my pack. My best guess is that Charlie, who was (and still is) kind of a vacuum cleaner for his food, finished first, and then went over to investigate Cece’s bowl. She defended her food, and in doing so, got riled enough that she couldn’t stop defending her food. Afterwards, I separated their food bowls at feeding times, they reconciled in typical doggie fashion, and we haven’t had any feeding time problems since.
The second incident was while playing fetch. Cece went for the ball, and Charlie tried to go for it too, and Cece defended it – and kept defending it, going from zero to fighting fury in just a few seconds. I had to run across the yard and physically separate them, because Cece wasn’t backing off, despite Charlie trying to back away from her, and she refused to call off. Again, I pulled her off, and got them both into submissive positions and growled at them fiercely. Neither was injured, thankfully. They both learned from these two incidents, I will admit. When playing fetch, Charlie now lets Cece get the ball first if she is so inclined, and she for her part usually drops the ball after catching it, letting Charlie return it to me, until she gets bored with fetching altogether and goes off on her own pursuits, while Charlie gets to fetch to his heart’s content. So, they have both learned how to interact better with one another as packmates. But, while they get along easily now, since Charlie’s advent Cece is now much more likely to get upset about HIS dignity or safety around other dogs. And again, when she does get defensive enough to respond, she doesn’t have an off switch.
About three months ago, Cece went after another dog at an off-leash dog park. We were playing fetch on the far side of the park, when they went with some other dogs to investigate a new arrival. I headed the same direction, but they got there first – and I was still far enough away that I didn’t see exactly what happened, and was also unfortunately far enough away that I couldn’t prevent the situation from exploding. The other dog’s owner admitted later that his dog had been getting aggressive – with Charlie, not with Cece. Cece took offense on Charlie’s behalf, and proceeded to defend Charlie. It’s in situations like this that Cece’s breed heritage becomes truly scary. As I mentioned in her altercations with Charlie, when she does get into a fight, she doesn’t call off, and she doesn’t give up. In this particular situation, I had to physically remove her teeth from the other dog, then pull her to the other side of a fence in order to separate them and calm her down. The other dog needed stitches, which luckily the dog park provided.** Cece was visibly shaken (as were all of us) after the fact. I was way more than shaken. When I went to the vet’s office to check on the other dog, the other owner admitted his own dog was at fault, and assured me that his dog was fine.*** Nevertheless, we haven’t been back to the off-leash park since.+
Their ability to do a lot of damage is why so many people are afraid of pits, I think. When they are well-trained, well-loved and have a stable temperament, AmStaffs and other bully breeds are a joy to be around,++ and they can be very gentle and loving companions to people. But, if they do turn on other dogs due to breed heritage mixing badly with circumstances, or when they turn on people,+++ either because they have been trained to do so, been abused/neglected badly enough, or are just “bad” individual canines, then pits have the equipment and power to do an awful lot of damage. They are by no means the only dogs with that capability of course,‡ but they are in that group of powerful, potentially scary, dogs. I think that those of us who love dogs, and love these particular breeds, have a responsibility to train our dogs as best possible, monitor their interactions with other dogs and with people, and work to set positive examples. But, even when we do our best, sometimes problem circumstances and breed heritage together can erupt in scary ways.
Despite the difficulties and hardships, I love my dogs dearly, and would never give them up. I just continue to do the best I can, giving them every opportunity to be happy and healthy dogs. That’s my job as the owner and alpha. After all “dogs are trouble, I’ve been told,/but dogs are worth their weight in gold.”
* * *
*Charlie is a collie-shepherd-something-or-other mix, who was abandoned when a family moved. A local dog rescue asked me to take him “temporarily”…
** it’s a paid-admission off leash park connected to the humane society, and they have vets on staff 24-7
*** I will note here that I was MIRACULOUSLY LUCKY that the other dog’s owner was a responsible and upstanding individual who admitted that his dog was at fault, even though my dog did more damage. Had he been anything other than an honest and responsible individual – or had he just been angrier – it is probable that the situation would have been much uglier, and with potential legal repercussions. Very scary. That’s one reason I’ve never taken the dogs to a free public off-leash park at all.
+In point of fact, the books I read suggest that off-leash parks are not really a good idea for bullies over 4, even if they have never shown signs of dog-aggression – and for just this reason. They can do a lot of damage if something riles them up. We’d never had any problems before this, but…
++ and hilarious clowns, as has been noted
+++ I should mention, by the way, that the other OWNER never suffered any aggression from Cece, even while he was trying to separate the dogs. She had no interest in him, and completely ignored him, in fact.
‡ Robin mentioned some other examples above
Tuesday Afternoon
. . . has already become Sacred Voice Lesson. Rats. There’s Sacred Home Tower Bell Practise, Sacred Variable Music Lesson Usually Including a Piano, and Almost Sacred Wednesday Tower Bell Practise.* I’ve been taking voice lessons, what? Is it as much as two months yet?** They have no business entering the sacred category this quickly.*** I object. I protest. Okay, listen up, all you regular blog readers. If I ever start saying things like ‘I’d really like to try . . .’, ‘I’m thinking I want to try . . .’, ‘I’m getting old so if I’m ever going to try . . .’ I WANT YOU ALL TO FALL ON ME IN A BODY SHOUTING NO, NO, NO, NO, YOU DON’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING ELSE. REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU DECIDED TO TAKE VOICE LESSONS. Are we quite clear about that? Dranglefabs. Geez.
So you can take quite a lot of last Tuesday’s entry as read again. I’ve been telling myself I should cancel my voice lesson, blah blah blah, I should cancel everything, blah blah blah, till I get PEGASUS done† (blah blah blah). I was even thinking a tiny sore throat—just the veriest tinge of a sore throat: just to last a few hours of Tuesday morning—just enough for me not to want to risk it, or to risk Blondel††, and cancel, and stay home and work on PEGASUS. As soon as I made the fatal phone call the sore throat could go away again.
I feel fine.†††
So I hurtled hellhounds in a timely manner so I could get down to the mews and run through my repertoire before I had to go pay money to make someone listen to me sing. ‡ Saints preserve us, what a noise. ‡‡
But.
But I noticed . . . when I practise at home, because it’s all so difficult, and there are so many bits to remember, I cut it up in lots of little pieces. One of those little pieces is the frelling Italian. (Or Latin, in Panis’ case.) This week—with doing my exercises and having the occasional run-through of the melodies just so I don’t forget them, which is about as much as I have time for at the moment—I’ve been trying to do something about the frelling words. I do this chiefly by muttering, as I play the piano with one finger. Today I thought, hmm, I should probably have a try, you know, singing the words. Words and music. And one finger dragging me through the tune. ‡‡‡
You need to realise that my muttering is just muttering—it’s just my ordinary voice, which is to say it’s also the voice I used to sing with§, before I started in with Blondel. And I had this revelation this morning, when I moved into singing that . . . something is really happening. I know I said last week that I was producing the occasional note that sounded like a note. It’s not that I’m (yet) producing that many notes that sound like notes. But what is clearly happening is that when I sing now my voice climbs out of my throat and the top of my chest and moves into my belly and the front of my face. I can’t keep it there, and things do keep falling over or closing down or§§ going catastrophically flat—but it’s still clearly something happening.§§§ This is thrilling.¤
And I love singing with a music stand. Even if waving my hands around is kind of one more dratted thing to remember, and I keep getting stuck. I will eventually stop getting stuck because waving my hands around is obviously part of the system in terms of Me Singing.
And he gave me another new piece—after I’d finished bashing and caterwauling poor old Panis and Caro. I’m beginning to think that Blondel, far from being the calm focussed young professional he likes to present as, is just as nuts as . . . oh, as Oisin, say, in his own way. More music! he says. Mwa ha ha ha ha! Keep ’em off balance! Keep ’em moving! Keep ’em from getting too bogged down in what they can’t do yet! Let ’em develop confidence¤¤ and flexibility by having a go at lots of stuff! Today he said cheerfully, I have something from the Messiah I thought you might look at.
The . . . what? —I suppose it depends on how seriously you take your Handel. There are those who think he is sort of the 18th century Elton John¤¤¤. I would not be one of them. I think he is a Great Composer. And I’m in the early stages of deciding he’s a frelling ratbag of a Great Composer—or that Blondel has an Interesting Sense of Humour. Or both. He’s given me ‘He Was Despised’. We sight read it together—ha ha ha ha ha–okay, at least he sang it with me. But the only reason it wasn’t so embarrassing that I had to throw myself out the (open) window£ is because I know the Messiah pretty well because I love it to death, so the absolutely diabolical tune only finished scaring me to death in the places where the singer has to come in alone. Alone! And I know Blondel will be expecting me to sing it by myself next week!
But gods and glory, what a gorgeous piece of music. If Blondel can stand listening££, I daresay I can stand having a go.
* * *
* There’s also Sacred Handbell Practise, but that’s still a bit mutable, to Niall’s unending anguish. And there’s hellhound hurtling, of course, but that’s not really sacred. That’s more . . . preservation of life as we know it. I don’t really want to imagine what a couple of unhurtled hellhounds would be capable of. And one must have hellhounds, of course, if one is a hellgoddess.
And there’s also planting thirty roses, but I’m not thinking about that yet.
** Tactfully disregarding the fortnight’s holiday Blondel took shortly after I began taking lessons. How careless of him.
*** Piano lessons with Oisin did. And look where that got me. Composing^, and . . . voice lessons.
^ And I refuse to disregard Finale, composing software programme Infested with Demons.
† Preferably by the 8th of October. Eeep.
†† There are advantages to external instruments. That you buckle up in cases or close the door on and that never have head-colds. And which you don’t need to use for Loud Remonstrance at offspring/ spouses/ colleagues/ hellhounds/ computers/ rosebushes/ All Stars’ shoelaces/ doorframes/ other drivers etc.
††† Well, my brain is squishy, but I have been working on PEGASUS. I just stopped for two hours this afternoon. I’m also a little short on sleep. I was reading TWICE-BORN last night. Peter says there’s a cameo for a hellgoddess in it. I haven’t got to her yet.
‡ One of Blondel’s few faults is that he has this obsession with fresh air.^ And today it happened. I looked up from my music stand and Blondel’s neighbour was outdoors in his garden hanging up laundry mere feet from Blondel’s open window. Aaaaaaugh. He had a pretty tortured expression on his face too.
^ So do I, of course. I have two or three windows open at the cottage till there are positively ice crystals forming on the glass. But I don’t sing at the cottage. And I close all the windows at the mews before I get anywhere near the piano for any reason.
‡‡ What do you think, whose neighbours start cruising the real estate ads first? Violin teachers’ neighbours or voice teachers’ neighbours?
‡‡‡ This is multitasking of a very high order, words and music and a finger on the piano. –I don’t know how all those self-accompanying singers do it. There must be a Z chromosome or something, X for a girl, Y for a boy, and Z for being able to play and sing at the same time.
§ Chiefly Gypsy Rover, Suzanne, and Green Grow the Rushes Oh
§§ Speaking of the neighbours and estate agents’ ads
§§§ I’m also making more noise. Oh dear. This is not necessarily a good thing. See previous footnote.
¤ Easy endorphin high, remember? That’s me. This body/mind has many drawbacks and weaknesses, but that’s one of its virtues.
¤¤ Well, confidence is pushing it
¤¤¤ Hey, he can play and sing at the same time . . .
£ I would of course try not to land on the laundry-hanging neighbour
££ I’m not sure what we do about the neighbour . . . can’t he get an OFFICE JOB?