For the Intrepid Few who might actually venture here...

EDIT: I've recently gotten an acount at Dreamwidth (yay!) and am over there at greenmama.dreamwidth.org .  From here on out I'll be posting most of the cooking, gardening, and herbal posts over there.  What's already here will stay, but probably eventually be crossposted.  I'll keep doing General Live Blogging, belly dance stuff, books I've read, etc. and so forth over here. Come see me there! Subscribe to me! Make me feel like one of the cool kids!

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Under the cut, a few for anyone who's interested...
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it's 9:10 on a Thursday morning. My kids are at day camp till 4, I am not expected at work today.

It's the first day of "summer break" for me.

First there was the convention, which sucked up most of June with busy-ness and extra work and hours and sweat and tears (95% gratis, by the way, which still sort of busts my buttons, mostly because when I said "yes" to the conducting part I didn't realize I was also saying yes to giving up the entire month of June), and then there was the convention itself the second week in July, and then there was the massive unending marathon staff meeting that was all day Tuesday and Wednesday of this week...and now it's just sort of Summer.  Now I get to start doing what I usually do during the summer (usually during June!), calmly getting my office re-organized, looking at what we did last year, looking at what we want to do this year, ordering music, composing music, getting together with other musicians and talking about all of the above (okay, yeah, it's fun, but it's also an indispensible part of doing my job, the hanging out with other folks who do what I do.  Cross-pollination, as it were. Creative and procreative intercourse. So to speak. :-) Also things like reading books, listening to music, just sitting and thinking, letting my brain do its underground work to recharge and rejuvenate for the ten month forced march that begins in August.

For the past 4 nights, I have slept well. Unmedicated, even un-herbed--I lie down, take my usual half hour or so (I hate that it takes me that long on a good night) to ruminate and quiet down my brain, and fall asleep till morning, wake up sleepy but rested.  This is the hugest gift in the world for a chronic insomniac who never quite seems to get enough. (I'm thinking a nap later this morning might be a good idea too.)

Part of me wants to burst into activity, make sure I don't "waste" this free day.  Fortunately, most of the other parts of me are stronger and are beating that part up with pillows and nerf balls till it shuts up and agrees to several hours of reading, dozing, tv-watching, and possibly sewing if I feel like it but probably not. (Our family costumes are done and ready to go, so why bother?) (Okay, I know why, because I just got my package from www.fabrics-store.com yesterday and there are about 11 yards of linen ready to be made into yet another chemise and gown. Yes, I cracked again; the doggy bag portion of that site is addictive, and when 4 or 5 yard pieces show up there, I tend to snatch them up, because I know I can make a gown out of that. But we will most likely only get to the Faire once; I'd hate to have to choose between gowns.  I'd like to wear this one once at least, before I tear it apart and do something else with it--which I almost definitely will because YIPPEE I've lost enough weight that it's already a little big in the bodice and I need to either take it in or more likely cut it up into a Flemish overdress, which would solve the problem...) (But I digress...)

So I will stay home, lie around, maybe take the dogs for a nice long walk later but mostly just Enjoy Laziness for a whole day.

Bliss.
--J

I've officially completed my first professional engagement as a tribal belly dance teacher. And people had fun, and I think people felt good about themselves, and no one seemed to think I was a total idiot, and I didn't fall on my ass, and neither did any of my students.

In about an hour and a half we did a little slow work (taxeem and floreo mostly) and some fast work (egyptian, choo choo, hip bump, and shimmy), and by the end of the class we actually did a whole exchange of leadership thing and everyone tried it. (I didn't make them--I said that if you get the leadership spot and you don't want to do anything, you can always just keep going on around, but they all took it on!) And they looked pleased with themselves afterwards.  And I had brought in a bunch of coin scarves, so most of the folks got to wear one and add a little jingle to things...

It was really fun.  I want to do it again.

Wheeee!
--J

I got to give two workshops, timed at the most bummer-ish times of the whole convention, and needed extra chairs for both...

I got to conduct 3000 musicians for an hour, beneath the envious glances of a goodly number of educated cathedrally men who probably thought they could have done it better...

I got to hear a wonderful priest--a wonderfully wise and gifted black man from Washington D.C.--give a superb talk about how God loves diversity, and do it in a way that honored everyone--he addressed race, gender, orientation, disability, and a few more isms with pointedness and strength and made me cry and feel like there might be just a little hope, he sang in Greek and he sang in Hebrew and he sang because he was happy and invited us all to sing because we were happy, because we were free...he even made the uptight white male organists relax and laugh a bit. (No small feat. ) He called us out, he called all of us out--but he did it with love. (I think that's what started my tears...for the past few months, I've been reading and hearing all this calling out for all kinds of reasons on all sides, at me, around me, having nothing to do with me, whatever...and most of that calling has been in anger. Righteous, justified anger. This man, a man with as much right to anger as anyone, called us in love, without pity or compromise or any intent to do anything other than speak the truth...but he spoke it in love.) (And he also pointed out that Jesus was most likely a brown guy. Which most people with brain cells know, but it's good to be reminded every once in a while.)

I got to meet friends I'd never met in person before because our relationships to that point had only existed in cyberspace.

I got to hear a convention hall full of people sing my psalm setting, got to hear the cantor part sung by a Spanish-speaker who understands cantillation and instinctively "got" what I had in mind...

I got to conduct 3000 people. (Did I mention that? Okay, I'll say it again) I got to hear and feel them about to pull apart, and I was able to bring them back into unity. And I wasn't afraid. I had the tools in my arsenal, and whenever there was a problem I knew which tool to pull out and use, and how to use it to get the job done.  I got to conduct Gregorian chant, and contemporary Gospel music, and elegant choral anthems, and a lovely bolero piece at Communion time, and a couple of massive and noisy hymn concertatos. I got to stand in the middle of all those voices singing in a big strong joyous forte on the fourth verse, as they decided without consulting with each other but knowing it was just right that they would dial it up to 11 for verse 5...

God, it was amazing.

And I'm tired.
--J

Why do so many smart, passionate, active, powerful blogosphere-dwellers give complete strangers the power to hurt them with words, comments, etc? Why do the opinions of those who have never by any kind of continuity, conversation, self-revelation, or any other form of personal connection gone through any kind of trust-building or vetting of any kind matter enough that these strong people of conviction choose to become and remain engaged in conversations that cause them pain?

I don't get it.

isms, power, silencing, oppression, etc. -- It's a computer. I can choose to turn it off and walk away whenever I want.  Unlike other parts of human existence, I can choose to walk away.

Unless you come into my space and try it.  In which case there's this very nice banning feature...

I don't get it.

I'm probably going to go somewhat incommunicado for the next week or so; the big national pastoral music convention that's been sucking up my time and energy and life-force begins Sunday afternoon and goes until the following Friday, and I have multiple hats to wear, so there will be little time to blog (let alone sleep or think.)

So I go off to sing and play and smile and schmooze (lots of schmoozing!) and listen thoughtfully and tell people they are amazing (usually quite truthfully) and spend money and make money and conduct and run around like a crazy person...and hopefully I'll survive and be back in good spirits and health when all is said and done.

Have a great week, everyone!
--J

So, anyone who reads this, please let me know--how do you and yours celebrate (or not celebrate, for whatever reason including of course living in a different country) the Fourth?

Ours will be slightly dull and work-dominated for me...there's the "special" Independence Day liturgy at 9:00am, another underlining of the sad reality that whenever there's a day with no work, about 30 Catholics will want to go to church and pray, and they'll want to sing patriotic hymns, so I have to show up.  And then the real bummer is that we still have to have our regular 5pm liturgy on Saturday evening, which is prime barbecue time.  I don't have a single cantor willing to show up, so I'll have to sing myself, and probably about 7 people will actually show up for the Mass anyhow.

After that, we'll probably go to our local municipal park and watch the fireworks, have a picnic supper and such.

So...what are y'all doing?
peace,
J

I've been following a bunch of blogs for a while.

Interesting now that I"m beginning to comment occasionally to discover that some of them--these are more public and out-there blogs, not LJ stuff--that only seem to have commenters who agree with them apparently do it by moderating and simply not allowing comments that disagree with or challenge theirs.

My reading list may be shortening in the future.
--J

Am I a bad mom?

My husband is going to the hospital tonight to see his dad.

The kids have been at the sitter for the afternoon.

Once I pick them up from the sitter, they'll be MINE for the balance of the evening.

This will make me insane. They will be squirrelly. They will be obnoxious.  They will push ever button I have.  I will yell a lot.

I don't really have that much more work I have to do...and yet I sit at my desk.  Because once I leave my desk, go to the sitter, and pay her, she will give me back my children and I'll have to take them home.  And they will be mine for the balance of the evening.

Geez, there must be one or two other things I have to accomplish before I leave...
--J

Okay, my friend Reg doesn't blog all that often, but when she does I love it.

This is from reggienotreggie.blogspot.com/2009/06/beginning-of-summer.html :

*****************

Pickle officially finished her 1st grade year on Friday...With the end of the year came the reams and reams of papers, artwork, workbooks and all the remnants of learning.  It will take me at least a couple weeks to go through it all, deciding what gets tossed and what few pieces we'll keep for posterity.

In case anyone's noticed, which no one probably has, I haven't been writing much about my in-laws lately.  In effect, I guess, I've sort of closed off my psyche and emotional wellness to them, because it only hurts me more to worry and fuss and try to help, and it doesn't help them at all.  They will do what they will do, and they will do it their way, and that's that. So I've more or less let go, as things have gone from bad to worse.

My father-in-law is in the hospital again.  He came home from the rehab center, with his wife, in early February.  Between then and now, he has not left his house once, nor permitted any health care professional within 6 feet of him. (A nurse comes every couple of weeks to check Ma's coumadin levels, but her hands are tied and she can't touch him.) Because, he insists, nothing's wrong with him that he can't take care of himself, or that Ma can't take care of for him. His swollen feet are so big that he has no shoes he can put on them. The wound in his leg has about tripled in size.  He has no muscle strength at all.  He has perpetual headaches. And he's having a harder time cleaning himself.  Ma, she of the 85 years and heart condition, is the one who has to lug him all over the house to get to and from the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, whatever.  He started out making doctor's appointments and then not keeping them.  Then he stopped even making them.  We tried to do an intervention, just to get him to let a nurse come in and check him out.  He yelled and cursed at us.  That was that last time, before Friday, that I saw or spoke to him.

Then Friday Ma got us all over there on a fairly flimsy excuse. I suspect she just wanted us to be there to see how bad he was.  He had all these awful hitchy breaths, and his eyes were unfocused, and he was in pain.  But he didn't want a doctor.  Finally in a moment of weakness Ma got him to admit to at least the possibility that he should go to the hospital.  My husband called the ambulance (since he can't get him around on his own), which took him there.

Now it's Tuesday.  The wound people are looking at the leg.  The endocrinologist says he now will need insulin shots.  The heart people haven't been there yet, as far as I know.  The urologist says he has impaired kidney function and some blockage somewhere.  He, of course, now that he's feeling stronger, insists there's nothing wrong and is ready to go home.

Nothing ever changes.

Okay, this quite frankly scares the crap out of me and makes me feel slightly nauseated.

www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1906765,00.html

Louisville's Bring your Firearms to Church Day( Full text of article under the cut. Trigger warnings, indeed. ;-^/ )

Oddly, my own f-list is saying lots about how many people are saying awful things about Michael Jackson, but very few of them are actually saying the awful things, so I haven't been seeing them.

When I think of Michael Jackson, this is the role that makes me smile the most. That this was his big solo number, in hindsight, is sort of poignant...

It's disconcerting when you go to the salon with a big shaggy head-ful of past-your-shoulders hair that's heavy and flat and hot and hanging in your eyes, tell your stylist to chop it off, to make it lightweight and non-soccer-mom and sort of funky, and she does, and you love it and it's now barely to your chin and you are now playing with putty and products and reveling in shaggy coolness...

...and you go to a school picnic that night...

...and you go to work the next day...

...and you take the kids to the sitters...

And not one person says anything about your hair.

I am so completely excited...I'm almost finished with my first-ever kirtle, and it looks really really good.

( Some photos and more blathering under the cut...but not of the finished dress. Yet. )

I've found a new diet trick.

In the evenings, rather than being tempted to munch on whatever munchables we have around the house, I now sew.

During the kids' naps (er...during the hour each afternoon I force my kids to remain quiet in their rooms without any other interaction) (no one actually naps, except for sometimes me) I work on fitting a bodice, finishing seams, sewing stuff together, any of the machine stuff.  As much as I possibly can in one sitting.

Then at night after the kids are in bed, in front of a dull tv show or a Buffy dvd (I'm on season 2 the second time around) (Buffy is not even remotely dull, to clarify--I just know it well enough that I can look away for stretches and not miss anything I didn't already know about), I do the hand sewing.  Last night I pleated the neckline and cuffs of my new linen leine onto their bands; tonight I will whipstitch the binding down. Tomorrow in the morning after I take the dog to the vet, I'll sew the bodice and lining together for my front-lacing dress, and put the skirt pieces together; tomorrow night I'll finish the armscyes by hand and pleat the skirt to the bodice.  If I have enough time, I'll pause the video long enough to machine sew the skirt to the bodice and then press play again while I whipstitch the lining to the pleated skirt. 

I used to dread handsewing like the plague.  I'd do anything to avoid it, even lame-looking machine tricks. (And I still stand by the gathering foot; I hate hand gathering with a passion.) But now that I'm trying to make something that will look really nice, clothing rather than "costume," I'm trying to do it right and discovering it's really not so bad. And when I've got a lapful of nice clean faux-saffron linen, last thing I'm going to do is head for the chocolate  or potato chips, ya know?

I'm also discovering, to my surprise, that pleats ain't so bad after all.  For years they've intimidated the hell out of me, usually because at the time I was using commercial patterns.  They still intimidate me there.  But if it's a question of, okay, I have this much fabric and it needs to be pleated to this much band or binding, I'm discovering I have a fairly good eye for estimating.  And in the end it's easier and looks cleaner than the old (and completely non-period) drawstring or elastic trick.

I still don't press anything.  But I keep a spray bottle of water by the sewing table, and instead of ironing I just dampen the linen and fake-press it that way.  I just can't stand a hot iron in the summer, plus I'm scared a dog or kid will knock it down and burn it-him-her-self if I just sort of leave it out and/or on.  The water works fine. :-)

Okay, back to my day job...
--J

This woman is my hero.  I totally relate.


http://thefeministbreeder.typepad.com/the_feminist_breeder/2009/06/i-never-wanted-to-be-a-working-mother.html#tpe-action-resize-400

When I first got my sewing machine about 6 years ago, I bought most of a bolt of white muslin, cheap $.75 stuff.  Last night I actually came to the end of the roll. I thought it would never happen.

First year EVER this has happened. It's only June, and I'm already thinking about family RenFaire costumes.  And last night--all in one evening--I made my daughter a little front-lacing gown and most of a skirt, and my son a new shirt and most of a tabard.  She can still wear last year's chemise and biggins, and he can still wear last year's pants.  (All of the above indeed made from Stash.)

I also, in stopping at JoAnn's to get grommets, committed the kind of heinousness I often commit when entering a fabric store; it's been a while, though, so my defenses had weakened over time.  There was all this linen-rayon blend in perfect Renfaire commoner colors for like $3 a yard. So instead of what I'd originally planned, which was not only to clothe the whole family by the Faire but to do it all just from my stash, I'm maybe going to break even between fabric used and fabric purchased.

It's weird--I like to sew, but I have less than zero interest in using pre-made patterns.  For me the fun is all in figuring out how to do it and creating patterns myself.  My son's shirt this time looks pretty awesome (though the gussets are a little sloppy) and my daughter's gown is sort of my prep work for my own that I want to make next.

And this year it's my turn: I'm tired of taking adorable kids to the Faire and looking crappy myself.  My old muslin chemise that was the first thing I ever really sewed looks like it's the first thing I ever sewed.  The cheesy blue skirt looks like it's made from dollar-a-yard cotton broadcloth.  And while a good arisaid can cover a multitude of sins, it's summer, and I'd rather not add the weight.

So I'm making myself a gown this year.  Basic kirtle, probably fastening on the sides (period or not), of brown linen I've had in my stash for a while.  Square neck, pleated skirt, nice and full.  And I'll either make an underskirt or a Flemish-type overdress from some of my new linen-rayon stuff.  Or what the hell, maybe both.

I have, also in my stash, 4.5 yards of saffron-ish yellow handkerchief linen and 6 yards of white...so I haven't entirely decided whether my underclothes will be Flemish or Irish...but I'll have a new smock or leine when all's said and done.  And some kind of caul or kertch, but that'll wait...

If there's time, my husband will get a new pair of pants, and possibly my daughter a new chemise because the one she has really is too small...but this year I want a decent costume, something that'll last me a while and can be built on. 

Sigh. So much fabric, so little time...
--J
--J

I actually haven't seen Up yet. And everyone tells  me I love it.

But I'd never seen this article before, and it's awesome...

www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/06/dear_pixar_from_all_the_girls.html

Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees

by Linda Holmes

 

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