sarangi

My fingering isn't perfect in this pic. But anyway.

still gone.

drove to the county animal shelter today, talked to the neighbors, posted on craigslist, checked the online 'founds' at the humane society and the biggest animal hospital.

it is wrong that i got a crush on another cat while i was checking out the found kitties? feels too soon, but he wanted to play and he had orange eyes. bea had a blast looking at an entire room of kitties. i felt so sad, knowing that most of them probably wouldn't have anyone coming to look for them.

according to the movies, she should have shown up at the door either when i was packing bea and the stroller and the cat carrier into the car to go to the shelter, or right when we got back, or right after i talked with all the neighbors. damn lyin' movies.

cassie

she's missing.

i've had this cat for nine years. only a few months shorter than the length of my marriage.

she's gone missing on us once before, when we moved to portland, and she decided to hang out in the neighboring overgrown yard for a couple of days. but we've been in this house about a year now, so there should be no disorientation.

i came back from music lesson last night, read my son a couple of chapters, and settled with my own book before drifting off to sleep. i didn't get to ask my husband if he had sent her out for the night - a source of squabble, as i've never believed it to be safe, but the cat has never believed in letting us sleep through the night, either. i would be the one getting my nose or toes chomped around 3 am, while my husband simply couldn't stand the mewing or clawing to get into our bedroom if she was shut outside our room at night.

i noticed yesterday that she was walking gingerly up the stairs like an old cat. she's at least 11, and tiny. we don't know her true age as she was an adult when we adopted her. she hadn't been acting sick, but she had seemed to need more time with me after the kids had gone to bed recently.

even tj seems a bit put off, as if he's trying to ask where she is even though they were hardly buddies. he's had many a nose-swack from her in the mornings, idling for space at the breakfast bowls. the rest of the time, they ignored each other.

i hope i open the door to get the paper tomorrow and find her. i've checked the animal shelter's online lost and found, and unless she made it to gresham, she isn't there. also checked the major animal hospital, and craigslist. the number of lost pets on craigslist in just one day made my heart break a little. i have searched all the hidden nooks in the house, hoping that if she has passed, she found a comfortable space and slept until she couldn't wake.

How did I not know

... that John Larroquette is now on Boston Legal?

Strikingly white-haired now, but you'll always be Dan Fielding to me....

bibliofantasy

noun: something you've always wanted to see in print, but it doesn't exist.

usage: "I did recently check out a history that is exactly in the area I was researching, and noticed that most of the secondary material cited in the book postdates my graduate studies. This is kind of a bummer, because if I had finished my thesis, it likely would have been cited in it. As a library geek, it's always been a little bibliofantasy of mine to be cited."

"It's wicked cold!"

A few days in New England trained my son well.

learned to do / to learn to do

recently i've been exploring jewelry making more, and music. and now i'm starting to develop a check-list in my head of things i'd like to dabble in:

- there's a few quilting shops around here with great fabrics. i just want to find a nice, simple tunic pattern and whip some up in the spring.

- more jewelry making techniques. after thanksgiving we're dedicated to gettin the garage in order, which include machine shop space, and i want to use what i've learned and expand. here's what i made on my first go-round:



- scent. while i've been having some fun going up to a custom-scent body products shop not far from my house, i'm curious to see what i could come up with on my own. i don't know if i really have the patience, though - mix up a batch, wait six weeks, see if it needs chucking or tweaking...

150

i did a bit of exercise on a regular basis for a while (hello again, Denise Austin!), and my weight went below 150 for the first time since Bea was born.

then i had a crazier than usual week, and i forewent getting up at 6 to follow along with the previous day's tivo'd exercise show (denise is on at the same time as curious george, and i'll never win that battle. plus 7 is just a little too late - i have to do it before the kids are up.) so this morning, i'm at exactly 150.0 lbs.

seems like some kind of sign to get moving, or admit defeat.

busy.

hella.

i coulda sworn i was posting about easy-going, not-much-happenin' days. over and done with, apparently. i've been taking an insane number of classes - music, jewelry-making. got to meet ram narayan's son, who gave an amazing sarod concert. (oh and oh. it turns out my original sarangi teacher in pune was good friends with his dad. and he put a blessing on little bea's singing head, and said he'd be at her first concert. cloud 9 stuff for me.) have been asked to participate in a music performance in december, and to prepare a demonstration on sarangi for several classes in nathan's school. also been asked to be the 'professional guest jew' for hannukah in nathan's classroom. got a new responsibility at work, which i'm really enjoying - collection stuff, which i haven't really had under my belt before (i get to buy stuff! woohoo! you know they like you at work when they let you play with their money.) oh, and my kids. are awesome. boo is all about the halloween. and somehow i turned 'hey let's trick or treat together' with some of his friends into 'hey let's have dinner at my place, then go trick or treating.' trying to exercise regularly, since two people during one weekend asked me when i'm due. (!!!!) trying to be busy making more knitted jewelry for friday, but i'm typing this instead. meeting up with a couple of perfume people thursday. my hands hurt.

welcome to the boys' sangeet club

i spent three evenings over the weekend in a raga singing workshop with pandit pran nath's disciple, terry riley. (wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Riley)

riley is also an experimental musician in his own right, having played with tape loops since the 50s. but this workshop was purely indian music. he'd give us a little bit of the raga, a bit more, and a bit more, until about an hour later we'd have the whole composition.

there were certainly things to be gleaned from this: that there is a certain pattern of ascent and descent, and that the same 'note' may be quite different depending on how you're approaching it. it felt like the note could be considered to have a range, started just above the note below and ending just at the tail of the note above. pran nath apparently believed that a note would be different from raga to raga.

the group in the workshop comprised of about 20. it was mostly guys. at least half of the women who were there practice singing or chanting as a devotional, and were looking to expand their range. many of the people there were also instrumentalists - several tabla players, and one guy who had just returned from tuva with a lovely folk stringed instrument and a penchant for throat singing. (amazing post-workshop jam between that and tabla!)

i've already found that i'm using what i learned in my sarangi playing, even though i haven't had a lesson since the workshop. my sarangi instructor is also a student of pran nath, so she's looking forward to working on the ragas with me.

one thing i realized, though, is that although i've been wanting to play music with someone, i'm hesitant to just call someone from the workshop and work with 'em. because it's likely to be a guy. and there was definitely a feeling of being in a guys' club during the workshop. toward the end, someone asked terry for an anecdote about pran nath, and he wasn't able to just spit one out - so he said that two of the men at the workshop were also pran nath's students and could also be asked. my instructor had to pipe up that she was pran nath's student too - and we were all in her house at the time.

so.... still just me, the sarangi, and the buddha machine for right now.

someone come to my house

and show me how to use Garage Band.

The Apple shops all offer the GB classes from 3-4 PM, which doesn't work when one has a kid to pick up from school.

I have been messing around with my sarangi and a Buddha Machine, and wrote a little melody to play over one of the loops. I'd like to develop it further, but I realize what my problem is:

The hours of 10 pm - 12 am are about the only reliable time I have with my hands free. In this time, I am trying to: knit a sweater, make jewelry, read, play music, and actually talk to my husband. Unfortunately, I while away a chunk of this in front of this very computer screen, too.

Someone come to my house, and sew me on some extra arms.

there are toast marks on my back

i was grilled for over an hour by a scientologist at the reference desk today.

a lot of the answers had to do with explain what our policies were regarding collections, cooperative borrowing, donations, and various fine points about the catalog and how it organizes results. and then, after literally AN HOUR of this, he wants to know how the dewey decimal system is broken down.

"you don't have a handout you can just give me?"
"nope."
"they don't teach dewey in schools anymore. they just teach politics."
(not rising to the bait on that one.)
"why don't you have a handout?"
"because most patrons come to this desk looking for a particular author, or title, or subject. and i help them get it."
"what if they want to browse?"
"usually they still want a subject area to browse in."
"so i'm a freak of nature?"
"you're one of the more curious patrons we've had in."

other parts of the exchange included explaining that we don't take donations if the donor specifies the book has to become part of the collection, and that just because our branch is big, we may not have all the material on scientology he thinks we should have, but we will get it from other branches. why don't we have it? because there are six other copies of this book in county, and none of them are checked out, and we don't get many requests for it at our branch. therefore, there is an adequate supply.

i kept my cool, but i'm totally drained. i hope to g-d he doesn't come back in tomorrow.

i know that i should not have spent that much time on one patron. i did interrupt him when other patrons came to the desk and i told him i would do so. i do have a fear that patrons with agendas like that are looking for an opportunity to have a problem with how they are treated and to scream discrimination.

loneliness

now that boo has gone back to school, it has hit me.

i am mindnumbingly, soulstompingly lonely. moving twice in two years, and staying home all week with a baby has finally gotten to me.

i was really looking forward to connecting with some of the parents at boo's new school, and it isn't happening. not only is it not happening, but at a coffee morning last week, i actually felt quite snubbed. i looked around the room and saw that everyone had gotten paired off into conversation, except me. someone had started talking with me, and before i could even respond fully, she gave me the 'uh-huh' nod had turned to someone else. i waited for about 8 minutes, and left without saying anything further. i am now avoiding people in the halls.

i barely see my neighbors, and i'm feeling awkward around a couple of them anyway. next door, we had given them a wedding present that they have yet to verbally acknowledge - which is all i'm looking for, i don't expect a written thanks - and across the street, we made them sorbet out of the cherries they brought over before their month-long trip out of town, so they wouldn't miss their own fruit. i mean, just tell me if you liked it. or return my tupperware. or something.

i'm basically crying a lot, and anything tips me over right now. i hold myself together long enough to get boo into his classroom, and to pick him up and spend the afternoon with him, but that's about it.

Beach day!

This was the Sunday before school started. We just took it as a day trip. Cannon Beach's hotels were entirely full, so it was just as well.

Bea got a chance to put her toes in the sand, and I held her above the water (too cold for baby toes). Boo flew a kite and felt quite masterful by the end of the day.

deeeep breath

boo's first day in his new school went fine. for some reason, the school system tried to knock him out of his class, but his teacher was prepared for him to show up. or, semi-prepared: his desk was waiting in the hallway. he doesn't seem too put out by being in a roomful of kids who mostly know each other already.

the small amount of people-watching i did during pickup and dropoff was fun. it was like being in a hallway of my clones. i feel a tad bit pigeonholed.

dad's surgery was delayed by an urgent case that his surgeon worked on this morning. this made me fret for a bit until i got more news - one prefers a fresh, non-tired doc working on your folks. however, by 9 pm EST, surgery was done, and all went well. it took longer than expected, but went well.

boo also did well at his tabla lesson today. he was really dreadful during some of the summer sessions - he did not like having to wait for my sarangi lesson. when we drove to his teacher's, he had fallen asleep in the car. this is usually a sign that i'm in for a lot of protests and tears. there was a bit, but i simply told him we were there for his lesson and he was to do it. i stayed in the other room (he acts up a bit if i'm watching) and it sounded like one of his better sessions.

i took a long walk with bea in her jogging stroller this afternoon. i was surprised at how out-of-shape i had become. i tried on jeans last night and felt awful about finding myself a size 14. there are boxes and boxes of size 8s and 10s in our garage and closets, and i want to be in those clothes again.

favorite thing

Bea loves thumbpiano!

bullet points (non-violent version)

- Boo has another wiggly tooth. He's also willingly gone to the dentist to have a couple of front teeth repaired. When he was little, he refused to go to sleep without a bottle. This left him with cavities. I knew they needed repairing but was scared of the process - the dentist we went to in Manassas wanted him to go to a specialist, and I had a grave fear of having him go through a major procedure and anesthesia. We have a dentist on our block here, so we went in for a cleaning. They told us that the affected teeth will likely fall out in the next year, and that the roots had formed a hard protective layer around themselves. Fixing them was mostly cosmetic, and I let Boo make the decision to have it done. His smile looks a lot better. I'm happy for him, it will be nice to start school at yet another new place with a better smile.

Sub-points: Yes, the bottle was a major argument between Boodad and me at the time. I pointed out that giving him milk after he brushed his teeth negated the benefits of brushing. I am shaking my head about this now - why didn't I just take over bedtime? Even if it was the only time Boo really got with his dad. Thankfully, these haven't been issues with Bea - neither the bottle, or the lack of dad-time.

- While Boo is losing teeth, Bea is gaining! Two little stubs on the bottom. She doesn't seem bothered by them, but I do get the occasional wicked chomp.

- I am not a good ukulele player. Not even passable. Boggles me that I can play sarangi, but not this.

- I think I've gotten my perfume ya-yas out for a while. It can become a ridiculously expensive quest, and I find it puts me very much into immediate gratification mode. This compounds the expense, as I have samples on order but still go out to sniff things in stores because I really want to smell something new, now. I like having a wardrobe of scents to chose from as part of getting dressed. But I don't want to end up on a never-ending ultimate scent quest.

- I do like perfume because perfume doesn't care if I can't lose the babyweight. And it is more pleasant to smell like Eau d'Whatever than Whiff o'Babypuke.

- Yes, we're looking forward to school starting. But I'm feeling a little guilty about this. Did we have enough fun this summer? Did I take Boo on enough adventures? It has been difficult to feel like I've been fully engaged for Boo while also taking care of Bea. I was looking forward to Boo taking the bus to school, but Boodad reminded me that taking him to and from school was helpful for meeting other parents and being able to interface with his teacher last year. Maybe he'll take the bus there, but I will pick him up.

- Once school starts, I can get Bea in the jogging stroller and move more. Yea! I had been trying to do this in the evenings, but it started getting impossible. Somehow our dinner-to-evening activities got later and later, and I couldn't get the time to myself. Boo would throw a fit about not going with me, and that meant I couldn't move with much speed.

- Later this month, I will be taking a three-evening raga class with Terry Riley. I'm very, very excited. I'm also at a point with the sarangi that I want to do more with it - playing with someone, or learning how to record myself and process it on the computer.

- I have been trying to be involved with the Portland chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, but I have some reservations and obstacles. One is, I can't see what they're doing that is different than other groups. The goals of the national movement are kind of amorphous to me, and there is not much online presence from other chapters to make idea-sharing easy. Another obstacle is a guy in the group who gives me incredibly bad vibes. Exactly the same vibes from a damaging exboyfriend. I don't like being in the room with him. I ran into him at the grocery store, and he didn't acknowledge me but I still got bad vibes. Eugh. And perhaps the biggest obstacle is a heap of passive aggression from Boodad, who will inevitably be late home if I have a meeting.

- Just realized this morning that the High Holy Days are right around the corner. Still haven't templeshopped yet, and I don't like doing it right before the holidays. I also don't feel a huge compulsion this year, which is very unusual for me.

Uke!

I gots myself a beautiful bright blue ukulele today. And a book of mildly cheesy classic songs. I'm plinking my way through 'Daydream Believer' right now.

Wheeee! Boo is more than a tad jealous, even though he got a new guitar today too.

btw, boing boing

dear boing boing,

please start tagging your posts. it drives me bonkers when i remember reading about an interesting book on your site, and can't remember any identifying information about it. readers have to scroll back through to whatever day it was posted on - and sometimes i don't remember exactly what day that was. having tags like 'book' 'science fiction' would be helpful.

yeah, i could set up a del.icio.us account just to do this, but for pete's sake. the place that pimped 'everything is miscellaneous' should be into doing some tagging, right?

full, full day

i worked a bit today, but not at my regular reference duties. i got to help with a program featuring a local author and Holocaust survivor. i've been used to seeing fairly low turnout at adult library programs, but this one was amazing. we had over 100 people, who stayed in rapt attention, despite the building's failed air conditioning.

i have heard Holocaust survivors speak before, and it always humbles me when i meet one by chance. i don't want to think i'm immune to hearing about the horrors. but i stood toward the back of the room, wondering if there was a portion of the crowd there for the 'horror porn' part of it. much in the way there are always readers for those 'a boy called it' books. this speaker had much to say about how the smallest shred of compassion could yield yards of hope. i am hoping that listeners took home that message.

right after i got home, we bundled out and headed to the india festival in the center of the city. lots of food, music, dancing. i think earlier in the day they may have had some events that boo would have been able to participate in, but i think he had fun. i surprised a couple of people with my mad hindi-speakin' skillz. (har.) however, did not locate somewhere to obtain mad malayalam-speakin' skillz. oh well. did obtain a sari, salwar kameez and bangles - and got bea some baby bangles - because sometimes i have to go to indian music events.

while watching boo stride about, i wondered at what point i could even begin to explain the Holocaust to him. the idea of him knowing that humans could be so horrible disturbs me. he's too young. and once he knows this, he can't be so young anymore.