Aearwen's Corner

Every life has a few times in it where the overwhelming news of the week is just, plain bad. That's been my week this week.

( Bad news and grumblings under the cut )

Eh. It's cold and rainy here, and my shoulders hurt like crazy. The news makes me cranky and moody.

Most times, I love autumn. But at times like this, I'd rather it had stayed summer.

Geez.

It seems like the week just barely gets started, and suddenly it's the weekend all over again. I had never considered how time speeds up, relatively speaking, for those of us with as much or more grey/silver as the "other" color, until the days seemed to just zip on past. I find myself, more often than not, blinking and thinking, "Waitaminute!! Wasn't it Tuesday just a minute ago?"

*sigh*

It's foggy too - a perfect ambience for pondering. I can see blue trying desperately to win against the fluffy, chilly white stuff; but unless the sun starts to put forth some serious effort, it's gonna be one of those "I think I'm a mushroom" days. Not that there's anything wrong with fog, mind you. This time of year, if we didn't have our night/morning fog/low clouds, we'd be having temps in the triple digits like they are just a few miles inland. No thanks.

Still...

My determination to regain my "skillz" on the piano means I've put in roughly 5 hours of practice this week, after maybe managing 1 per week up to now (since the performance, that is.) I do have to say that I'm really feeling how my shoulders and upper arms are failing. It hurts to turn pages, for heaven's sake!! I guess I'm gonna be memorizing a lot from here on out, because it hurts less when I don't have to do that extra move - especially with my left arm.

Getting old sux. Having arthritis sux. I wish I'd appreciated my smooth-moving joints back when I had them.

Don't make my mistake!

I got a call today from my brother (the one who was suicidal a couple of months ago) with some good news, for a change.

( Family blathering and a small vent under the cut )

Meanwhile, my Muse is back - I'm writing again. Two chapters of Changeling, a section of IDD, a section of In The Elvenking's Forest and a double-drabble in the last 2 weeks. She wants me to focus on Changeling now - which is great, because I'm certain there are those out there who would like to see the next chapter in Ivoreth's saga. I have some interesting plans, and I'm starting to dream it now.

And I need to dig into my sheetmusic archives and find my copy of the Schubert A-minor piano concerto. Seems we have a piano/organ duet version of part of the first movement, and right now Nashoma has the music so she can make copies for herself. Needless to say, if I want to play that thing properly, I'm gonna have to start putting at least six to ten hours per week in on a more regular basis (and not just a month before a performance.) Oh yea, I also need to print out the piano solo version of Debussy's "Sunken Cathedral". I'd really like to tackle that at the same time, giving an interesting variety to my practices... :-D

Good news all around, I'd say...

As usual, our family is putting off celebrating my birthday until the nearest Sunday, so that nobody's stuck working late and misses the meal and/or the cake. My daughter, Súl, got into her grandmother's (my mom's) recipe box and has decided to try her hand at making me a scratch angel-food cake for tomorrow. I'll be going out to get the ground pork and Napa cabbage for Chinese meatballs that is one of my all-time favorite meals.

But today, I lazed. I worked jigsaws, answered emails, had a lovely morning coffee with Súl and another stylist acquaintance. I don't feel my age that much (and I still have enough vanity that I'm not going to confess that age – sorry about that) except for my shoulders and knees. I'm very begrudgingly settling in to being one of the family "elders", even tho' I don't feel a whole lot different than I did when I was in my 20's.

The day has been quiet, and I've really had a chance to relax – which is very nice, considering that last week at about this time, things had more or less blown up about my ears. It took me a couple of days to get my head screwed back on straight (and to get my "cool" back); but while some of what was said was extremely hurtful, it's probably just as well that it got said so that it could be dealt with and set aside. Our family so rarely gets bent out of shape, it figures that when it does, it's a loo-loo!

My Muse has been at least a little cooperative. I finished another one-shot that is now getting "groomed" by my fellow Lizards and the denizens of the Hall of Fire. That makes two plot bunnies that never even made it to the hutch - altho' this last one holds the potential to expand into a full novel on its own. I'm working madly to tell the Muse that she HAS to let me finish at least two of the already pending works before she can give me another one. Having this many WIPs is a PITA.

JJ declared he was cooking supper tonite, so I get to play hookie from Mom duties. I'm a happy camper. But I'm hungry.....

Mind you, I live on the coast, not in a desert. Yes, I live in California, but being located next to the ocean generally gives us a little more clement weather. And yes, I'm well aware that with Memorial Day weekend behind us, Summer™ has officially arrived.

That doesn't matter. It's over 90°F here today - which is 20° hotter than we normally get. In fact, our usual weather is such that most of the homeowners in this area don't even own air conditioning. We're sweltering, and melting, and just generally miserable here today. This sucks.

On a better note, I'm starting to feel the effects of my resolution to become more active. I have more energy and look forward to actually doing things during the day. And after almost three years of fighting the tendency to swing violently from being bound up to running to the bathroom constantly, things are running smoothly. I can even eat cheese again!!

The news on the family front is better too. #2 son in Oregon reports that he now has a job - and that it fell together easier than most of the jobs he's held so far. Hopefully that means that their entire picture up there will begin looking definitely UP. And Súl is more or less fully moved back into the apartment and now slowly putting the place to rights. It's going to be very different from when my folks had it, or from when L&L had it, but I really like the new decor.

And so it goes. I'm anxious for the sun to begin to set, and temperatures to get back into the reasonable range. For now, however, I think I'm going to go wet a towel and wrap it around my neck as a personal cooling device. I don't like being so sticky.

...and I have three big boxes of books in my new bedroom to cull through; some I'll stow in the bookcases that are there or set aside for the one that still needs to be built, others I intend to give to either a library, GoodWill, or the dumpster. Our home is overwhelmed with books - and not all of them fiction. My folks bought Time/Life books up the wazzoo - the Science Library, the Nature Library, the American Wilderness set, another natural beauties set... *sigh* Growing up as a kid, they were great. Before the Internet with my own kids, they were great. Now...

AND... I have a new carpet in that bedroom and the hallway. Went and selected it one day, and it was installed the very next. It's amazing how cushy and thick and comfy and WARM a new carpet is - and even more amazing how flat and squashed and kaput and just plain yucky all the old carpet looks compared to it. I think... not entirely certain... but after my daughter Súl gets all her flooring done (which is this next week) I might think about just getting the living room and dining room refloored as well. That carpet is only forty-some odd years old and threadbare to the floorboards in places - and it's also squashed flat, the padding's shot, and desperately needs replacing.

I need to do music arranging today - I'm the accompanist/music arranger for a community program to be put on in August and need to get my round-TUIT on the ball. I need to give myself a piano accompaniment part - and three-part choral chorus - to We All Are Welcome Here. Such fun!

But before anything else, I gotta do my posting and then head over and let Súl do my nails again. I'll be SO glad when she gives me back the Gel overlay. I mean, I understand that the new "Shelac" product that she's trying out will be nice for ladies whose nails only need a durable polish job - for them, it will be fantastic. I, on the other hand, have nails as thin as tissue paper, and need the stability of the full gel overlay.

Am I spoiled? You betcha!! However, the price of getting nice nails for the best price is that I get to play guineapig when Súl wants to try out new product and/or technique. Most of the time, I come out ahead. This time, not so much.

Well, one chick has now successfully flown from the nest and landed safely in Eugene, OR. The place feels... quieter, I guess would be the proper word for it. On the down side, I don't have L popping into the kitchen to discuss things anymore, and I miss that. He was just really waking up to the wide world of how everything around him - environmental, political, and so on - affected (or could affect him) personally, and in more than just his pocketbook. He enjoyed the scenery on the drive up there, though, and saw parts of California he'd never seen before in his life. On the up side, I will be getting a bedroom that is currently primed and ready for a new coat of paint.

More apron-string stretching happened yesterday and today when JJ, the learning-disabled side of the twins, hopped a bus at 6AM that he'd have to transfer from to another bus once he hit SLO and then make it to his Special Olympics Regional Meet by 8AM. I asked him to call once he got there, forgetting he didn't have a cell phone (he used too many minutes this month already, and his sister cut him off at the ankles until after the next bill.) So I had to wait around and hope and pray he made it ok. He did, coming home when he was supposed to and surprised when I reminded him he was supposed to call. TODAY he hopped the bus again to attend his work supervisor's wedding at the Old Mission up there. No, I haven't heard from him, and I'm gonna have to trust that he'll be home on time again.

It's one thing when your kid is fully functional to watch him/her waltz out the door, knowing that if there are problems they'll call, and trusting that they'll make it back ok. It's another entirely to watch a 27-yr-old who still cannot read waltz out the door. JJ's got a lot of intelligence, don't get me wrong; his disabilities lie in a number of areas. But it's the principle of the thing: of letting go of a child that, in so many ways, needs supervision and parental nurturing despite being an adult.

In some ways, I'm glad this is all happening at once. I need to make peace with the concept that Hubby and I are essentially retired now. Our kids are grown. Our parents are gone. We are the family elders (except for one or two near-centenarians who live far away.)

I still have 2 of my 3 kids in the house with me - well, ok, Súl is in my parents' old apartment, in the middle of a floor-to-ceiling renovation of it, and perfectly capable of moving out on her own at the drop of a hat. She has a job that would afford the high housing costs around here easily. To have her here is as much a convenience for her as it is for me. And luckily, we get along well. I get along well with them all, for that matter.

It's just that a person doesn't expect this to creep up on you and then jump out from behind a rock at you. I looked in the mirror as I got my hair cut a while ago and saw my mother sitting there, I swear. When did that happen?

I still need to take my daily walk today. I'm hoping this feeling old crud will evaporate with some fresh air and exercise.

After I post this weeks fics, that is...

I bet most of you didn't know that today (April Fool's Day) is my wedding anniversary - and that's NOT a joke. Hubby and I have been together for 32 years today - and it just doesn't seem possible. Our celebration today - courtesy of daughter Súl and daughter-in-law Míriel - was lunch from a favorite, local fast-food place (OrcuttBurger) and then a nice pot-roast dinner. Hopefully next year, we both will be in better shape to go out to someplace like Red Lobster or a good steakhouse.

In the spirit of the day, however, I offer the following, shamelessly snitched from jkahane, who posted this poem by Jean Wells Rogers, a long-time reader of the Dear Abby columns in the newspapers:


APRIL 1

No one goes hungry
All people are fed
The oceans are clean
Lake Erie's not dead.

The Irish aren't fighting
The Arabs love Jews
The swords are now plowshares
Now ain't that good news?

The water's delicious
The air is so clear
On top of a mountain
You see to next year.

Couples stay married
Children are jewels
Sure got you going!

APRIL FOOLS!

Have a good day, all. And be carefully putting sugar in your coffee! :-D